Customer Reviews

No Uncertain Terms: More Writing from the Popular "On Language" Column in The New York Times Magazine

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First off, it's somewhat intimidating to review a book authored by such a master of the English language. While I am of the opinion that I am a somewhat talented writer, there are days when I covet the ability and skills demonstrated weekly by Safire in his language columns.

This leads me to the usual problem with books such as this one, which are compendiums of columns that have already appeared in the paper months or even years ago. In this case, most of these columns were written during the height of the impeachment case against President Clinton. In our current society where news is reported instantly via the internet, the news events mentioned in this book seem like they happened so long ago.

Still, due to the subject matter of focusing on language and its use, the information (or content as Safire points out) is still interesting, humours and educational. He also updates the columns with gotcha letters sent to him from fans around the world who love to catch him on his errors.

Also, for those of you who might bristle regarding his political views or history as a Nixon employee can put the bias aside and enjoy the book. I'm downgrading it from five to four stars because of the recency issue, but recommend it and also recommend his weekly column.

In this book, William Safire has collected some of his "On Language" columns from THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE. About three-fourths of the columns are on word origins, a subject in which I haven't much interest, and about one-fourth deal with usage. In spite of Safire's conservative political outlook (he was a speechwriter for Nixon), he doesn't drag his political views into these language columns. He even praises Bill Clinton's careful use of words in certain circumstances. On the other hand, he voices no criticisms of George W's speech, perhaps because others have pretty fully explored the subject.

Many people respond to Safire's columns with letters of correction or criticism. Safire calls these people the Gotcha! Gang. I have a few Gotchas of my own.

On page 26, he quotes a Seth Leibshohn of Washington who claims the author of Goldwater's infamous "defense of liberty" line was "a professor of political science at the University of Ohio . . . ." There is no such place as the University of Ohio nor has there ever been such a place. Ohio houses five institutions of higher learning containing the name "Ohio": The Ohio State University, Ohio University, Ohio Dominican, Ohio Northern, and Ohio Wesleyan.

On page 32, Safire quotes the following in a letter from Jack Fruchtman of Towson University: "Madison's amendment dealing with congressional pay was eventually ratified on May 7, 1792, as the 27th amendment . . . ." This is an obvious impossibility. If the 27th amendment was ratified in 1792, just a few years after the Constitution was adopted, then amendments 1 through 26 must also have been ratified by May of 1792. Those would include the amendments proposed after the Civil War, prohibition, and the ban on more than two presidential terms. The 27th amendment was actually ratified in 1992.

On page 74, Safire writes, "MetLife includes baby boomers, now over fifty, in the mature market." Virtually everyone agrees that the baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. All baby boomers, therefore, are not over fifty, although Safire's commas indicate that they are. Had he omitted the commas, the statement could not have been faulted.

This appears on page 97: "But stop when you come to the inflection point, which is what used to be known as a crossroads, as in the sage advice of the Old Managers, 'When you come to a crossroads, take it.'" This sounds like a misquotation of Yogi Berra's famous "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."