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Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. And don't start a sentence with a conjugation.
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
Words
Passive
Form
Carefully
Remember
Sentence
Used
Statements
Never
Sentences
Negative
Infinitive
Start
Split
Voice
Splits
More quotes by William Safire
Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: To hell with you. Offensive letter follows.
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After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate a glutton empraces the white porcelain alter, or more plainly, he barfs.
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On the analogy of 'Dictionary Johnson,' we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), 'Quotationeer Shapiro.' Shapiro does original research, earning his 1,067-page volume a place on the quotation shelf next to Bartlett's and Oxford's.
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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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Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy.
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A reader should be able to identify a column without its byline or funny little picture on top purely by look or feel, or its turgidity ratio.
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A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.
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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
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The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.
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Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day.
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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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Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.
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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.
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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
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If you re-read your work, you can find on re-reading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by re-reading and editing.
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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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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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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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One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially the classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to today's audience.
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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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