'Leding' On A Great Writing Path

“When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.” – William Safire 

Born on this date in 1929, just days after the Great Stockmarket Crash, Safire grew up in the turmoil of the 1930s to become one of America’s best-known authors, columnists and journalists. 

A stickler for language uses and demands, he was perhaps best known as a long-time syndicated political columnist for the New York Times.  He authored "On Language" in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, a column on new or unusual usages, and other language-related topics that he wrote right up until his death in 2009.  He also wrote The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time. 

     A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he disdained writers who used what he termed     “insiderisms” to try to attract or dazzle readers.  “Do not be taken in by 'insiderisms,’” he once noted.  “Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as 'lede.'  I say, ‘Where they lede, do not follow.’”

Lede, by the way, is the longtime journalistic term for the “opening” of a story, supposedly containing all the key or important information needed. Safire always delighted in adding a key “nugget” of info. later in his stories – “just to keep the readers on their toes.”

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