'The right words every time'

 

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

 

Born in New York City 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 and columnists.  He also was an off-and-on speechwriter, including for President Nixon and Vice President Agnew.  He is noted for penning the famous Agnew line describing those opposing Nixon-Agnew policies as “Nattering Nabobs of Negativism.”

 

A stickler for language uses and demands, he authored the weekly "On Language" in the New York Times Magazine; the enormously successful book The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time; and a nationally syndicated column, seen in hundreds of newspapers.  

 

The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner disdained fellow journalists who used “insiderisms” to try to 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' (a journalistic term for the opening lines of a story).   I say, ‘Where they lede, do not follow.’”   He delighted in adding a key “nugget” of information later in his own stories – “To keep my readers on their toes.”

  

A longtime supporter of the arts, he noted: “One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to today's audience.”