Watching My Language:: Adventures in the Word Trade [Hardcover]

William Safire (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 1997

"The ninth volume of tidbits of stylistic wit and wisdom from a man willing to display his grammar in public. . . . Yet again, readers will find that William Safire's apparently endless capacity to be fascinated by language is highly contagious. "
--Kirkus Reviews

America's most entertaining language maven is back with more words to live by in his latest exploration of hot catchphrases, syntactical controversies, and other matters of national linguistic importance.

Before you scratch that seven-year-itch, you might want to know where it came from. And before someone blurts, "You just don't get it,"  perhaps you should consult the Pulitzer Prize winning language columnist on the origins of that snappy feminist motto.

In Watching My Language, William Safire investigates these questions and many others, including:

What language was Bill Clinton speaking when he fumed, "I want to put a fist halfway down their throats with this. . . . I want their teeth on the sidewalk ?"
Why is Ukraine no longer the Ukraine? Should there be an insurrection against this usage?
Did baseball manager Leo Durocher really say, "Nice guys finish last" ?
Who deserves credit for coining the expressions policy wonk, digerati, and Not!?


William Safire, a man hip enough to explore the meaning of hip-hop, answers these questions and many more in this witty and enlightening collection.

Praise for William Safire
"Safire infuses his verbiage with humor, timely examples, and quotes, resulting in mini-essays that are informative and intriguing. "  
--Nashville Banner

"Wonderful. . . . Where once stood your seventh-grade English teacher guarding the narrow gates of good usage and correct grammar now stands William Safire. . . . His true calling is chasing down first-time uses of a trendy phrase, spotting literary allusions, and most of all, keeping the American language on the straight and narrow. . . . Your old English teacher would approve."    
--The Dallas Morning News

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This is the latest in the long line of collections of William Safire's New York Times "On Language" columns. Like its predecessors, it mostly focuses on language issues that arise from the politics of the day. Sometimes the political origins are a bit hazy now (Who remembers what got Bill Clinton so mad about George Bush's criticism of his "People First" economic program? Who even remembers the program?), but usually the resulting linguistic forays remain interesting (Clinton expressed his anger with the phrase, "I want their teeth on the sidewalk," and Safire turns up Shakespearean and classical antecedents). Safire is at his best when he is toiling in the Orwellian project of policing political euphemism--this is where his conservative political bent most successfully converges with his language maven status. For instance, his column--and readers' responses to it--about whether the Maryland state motto, Fattii maschii, parole femine (masculine deeds, feminine speech) is inherently sexist is a nuanced demonstration that politically correct language misses a lot.

From Library Journal

It has been a while (LJ 5/1/91) since the last compilation of the New York Times "On Language" columns by Safire, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, author, journalist, and admitted "card-carrying lexicographer and self-styled usagist." In this collection, he dissects the language patterns of the 1992 presidential candidates (Bush, Clinton, and Perot), the quandaries of evolving technology vocabulary, and the use of "retronyms" (words created to restore nouns that have been changed by modern-use adjectives, e.g., digital and analog watch vs. wristwatch). Learning proper English needn't be a humorless exercise, as Safire deftly proves in such columns as "Tossing Our Cookies." Other topics include "Niftie Gifties" (Safire's recommended books with linguistic and subject merit) and the usual assortment of etymology and usage peculiarities. As always, his essays are augmented by comments, corrections, and collaborations from faithful (and often famous) readers' letters. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
-?Cathy Sabol, Northern Virginia Community Coll., Manassas
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 317 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (September 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679423877
• ISBN-13: 978-0679423874
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,279,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Safire began his writing career as a reporter, became a speechwriter in the Nixon White House, and re-crossed the street to write an Op-Ed column in the New York Times for the next three decades. He also wrote the weekly "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine. He was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary and the Medal of Freedom.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Already outdated, August 12, 2005

By 

P. Chengelis "Greatrussian" (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Watching My Language:: Adventures in the Word Trade (Hardcover)

This is simply a collection of articles written by William Safire, whose political opinions I don't read or follow. The purpose is to describe current usage, as Safire see it, and more frequently, to go into the origins of current usage. Occasionally he takes the prescriptive angle, and argues the way words should be used. There are many times that I disagree on his definition of the sense of a phrase, or the origin of another. The dustcover promises to answer "Why is Ukraine no longer the Ukraine?" but Ukraine is not in the index, nor does the column (on pg. 7) really answer why. Slavic languages, including Russian and Ukrainian don't have articles. "Ukraine" and "The Ukraine" are the same. The distinction is in English.

The added touch of reader letters adds significantly to the value of the book, augmenting, and correcting the original columns. In particular, I have a new appreciation for the impact Yiddish has had on the English language and metaphors, particularly in New York.

While interesting, the book is seriously outdated, relying on columns from the early 1990s, which makes the book of limited interest to those unfamiliar with the utterances of a decade ago.