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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
Quite
Use
Right
Writing
Noun
Nouns
Straight
Available
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By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
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One difference between French appeasement and American appeasement is that France pays ransom in cash and gets its hostages back while the United States pays ransom in arms and gets additional hostages taken.
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I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years.
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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
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When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.
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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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What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
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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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You don't want lopsided government. You don't want one side running roughshod over the other.
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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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English is a stretch language one size fits all.
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Give your main clause a little space. Prose is not like boxing the skilled writer deliberately telegraphs his punch, knowing that the reader wants to take the message directly on the chin.
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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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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.'
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The wonderful thing about being a New York Times columnist is that it's like a Supreme Court appointment - they're stuck with you for a long time.
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To communicate, put your words in order give them a purpose use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.
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We are all environmentalists now, but we are not all planetists. An environmentalist realizes that nature has its pleasures and deserves respect. A planetist puts the earth ahead of the earthlings.
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