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Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?

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
Available
Quite
Use
Right
Writing
Noun
Nouns
Straight

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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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This is what it's all about. From what I could see, you could get a bunch of people together, whip up the press and have some impact.
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Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
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Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
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Have a definite opinion.
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It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
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In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination 'a full and fair trial.'
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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
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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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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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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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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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You don't overturn a previous court's decisions lightly and I think most Americans are somewhere in the middle on abortion and there's not going to be a revolution here at all.
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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
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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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The CEO era gave rise to the CFO (not certified flying object, as you might imagine, but chief financial officer) and, most recently, the CIO, chief investment officer, a nice boost for the bookkeeper you can't afford to give a raise . . .
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I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.
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Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.
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