The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
Wit and Wisdom from the Popular "On Language" Column in The New York Times Magazine
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
For the past twenty-five years Americans have relied on Pulitzer Prize-winning wordsmith William Safire for their weekly dose of linguistic illumination in The New York Times Magazine's column "On Language" -- one of the most popular features of the magazine and a Sunday-morning staple for innumerable fans. He is the most widely read writer on the English language today.
Safire is the guru of contemporary vocabulary, speech, language, usage and writing. Dedicated and disputatious readers itch to pick up each column and respond to the week's linguistic wisdom with a gotcha letter to the Times. The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time marks the publication of Safire's sixteenth book on language. This collection is a classic to be read, re-read, enjoyed and fought over. Fans, critics and fellow linguists wait with bated (from the French abattre "to beat down") breath for each new anthology -- and, like its predecessors, this one is bound to satisfy and delight.
Safire finds fodder for his columns in politics and current events, as well as in science, technology, entertainment and daily life. The self-proclaimed card-carrying language maven and pop grammarian is not above tackling his own linguistic blunders as he detects language trends and tracks words, phrases and clichés to their source. Scholarly, entertaining and thoughtful, Safire's critical observations about language and slanguage are at once provocative and enlightening.
Safire is America's go-to guy when it comes to language, and he has included sharp and passionately opinionated letters from readers across the English-speaking world who have been unable to resist picking up a pen to put the maven himself in his place or to offer alternate interpretations, additional examples, amusing anecdotes or just props.
The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time is a fascinating, learned and piquant look at the oddities and foibles that find their way into the English language. Exposing linguistic hooey and rigamarole and filled with Safire's trademark wisdom, this book has a place on the desk or bedside table of all who share his profound love of the English language -- as well as his penchant for asking "What does that mean?" Or, "Wassat?"
This new collection is sure to delight readers, writers and word lovers everywhere and spark the interest of anyone who has ever wondered, "Where did the phrase 'brazen hussy' come from?"
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Safire has published more than a dozen, often bestselling, collections (No Uncertain Terms, etc.) of his acerbic weekly columns on the English language. In his crisply witty commentaries, he does more than elucidate the origins of slang or correct common grammatical mistakes: he alerts readers to the rhetorical maneuvers of our politicians and public figures as only a former speechwriter can. Bush's phrase "Leave no child behind," the atomic origins of "ground zero," the difference between "antiterrorism" and "counterterrorism," and Tony Blair's diplomatic use of a moveable modifier in an Israeli speech all occasion the use of Safire's talent for analyzing the speech of our decision makers. His gift for plucking examples of more general shifts in word usage from the most obscure news reports and for picking up on debates surrounding word use is unmatched. Several of his columns cross-examine Supreme Court wording, and this volume includes entertainingly vigilant ripostes to Safire from Justice Antonin Scalia. Safire is adept at rooting out literary influences and half-remembered poetic allusions, tracking the appearances of, for example, Lewis Carroll's delightful verb "galumph." Unfortunately, Safire's command of foreign languages is less than reliable, as he records Jacques Barzun and others pointing out. And he can veer into chauvinism (for instance, calling for the world to adopt American-style layout for the day's date). Yet the investigations gathered here, each in an unfailingly droll tone, will instruct and delight all readers who share Safire's love of language and its endless permutations.
