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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.

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
Structure
Tough
Slang
Color
Freshness
Grace
Precision
Style
Adapt
Wish
Hang
Clarity
Admit

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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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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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Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
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A reader ought to be able to hold it and become familiar with its organized contents and make it a mind's manageable companion.
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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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... 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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The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.
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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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Don't expect others to do your work for you.
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I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years.
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Took me a while to get to the point today, but that is because I did not know what the point was when I started.
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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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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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Never assume the obvious is true.
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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
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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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Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
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If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
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Decide on some imperfect Somebody and you will win, because the truest truism in politics is: You can't beat Somebody with Nobody.
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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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