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I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.

William Safire

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William Safire
Age: 79 †
Born: 1929
Born: December 17
Died: 2009
Died: September 27
Author
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
William Lewis Safire
Greater
Precision
Words
Added
Used
Provided
Way
Welcome
Result
Color
Results
Ways
Expressiveness

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The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
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The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.
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To be accused of 'channeling' is to be dismissed as a ventriloquist's live dummy, derogated at not having a mind of one's own.
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The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama?ridicule and reproach?pleading and persuasion.
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Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.
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The remarkable legion of the unremarked, whose individual opinions are not colorful or different enough to make news, but whose collective opinion, when crystallized, can make history.
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You don't want lopsided government. You don't want one side running roughshod over the other.
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Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
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Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace.
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The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
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Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
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The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads Scientia Est Potentia - knowledge is power. Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.
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Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.
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Different regions may require different strategies, as President Bush has noted, but not different basic principles. It's either collective security or selective security.
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What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
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Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks.”'
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... it's Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root F.D.R. used the phrase earlier.
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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
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When your government, employer, landlord, merchant, banker and local sports team gang up to picture, digitize and permanently record your every activity, you are placed under unprecedented control.
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Do not be taken in by 'insiderisms.' Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as 'lede.' Where they lede, do not follow.
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