Quoth the Maven
I do not write much because I keep discovering things about which I would like to write and then never have time to do so. I start poking around to learn more about the new things, while the older ones gather dust. It is a disease of the dilettante, I suppose, to be so easily diverted.
That attempt at constructing an alliterative phrase is made in deference to a major manufacturer of them, William Safire, the subject of this post. The new thing distracting me this week is that I learned that it was during the last week of September that Safire died 15 years ago. Examples of such diversions which keep me from creating my magnum opus are easily found. I noted, for example, the anniversary of the death of another columnist and even his birthday. (That columnist is Russell Baker: see "Russell Baker (August 14, 1925 - Jan, 21, 2019," and "Russell Baker's Birthday." (Like Safire, Baker was both clever and funny.)
If you spent the majority of your years in the last century you will recognize the name "William Safire" and remember him as a conservative hanging around the Nixon White House, both of which are true. Safire was also responsible for these Spiro Agnew utterances: "pusillanimous pussyfooters" and "vicars of vacillation" (Democrats) and those "nattering nabobs of negativism." Another one, which could be used in Canada these days: "The hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history."
Pulitzer Winner
He won a Pulitzer for his "distinguished commentary" about the Bert Lance affair and here are his distinct titles: "Carter's Broken Lance," "Boiling the Lance," "The Lance Cover-up," "Lancegate," "The Skunk at the Garden Party" and "Beyond Lance." We could use him now.
Enough politics. Safire became a prose pundit and his New York Time's columns were under the title, "On Language." They were fun to read and have aged well. Many of them are collected in the books listed below. There is enough reading to get you through winter.
What About Love and Norma and the Maven?
They are found in titles of two of his books and you were probably more curious about them then you would have been about any title I could have come up with. Here they are with some information about each book.
In Love With Norma Loquendi
"Safire charms yet again with his lively interest in our language. ``Norma Loquendi,'' that fickle lass whose name the author translates as ``the everyday voice of the native speaker,'' is the title character of this ninth book to come from Safire's ``On Language'' column in the New York Times Magazine....Those who believe language is a delight as well as a necessity will happily while away the hours meandering through these pages." from Kirkus Book Review.
Quoth the Maven
"There are connoisseurs. There are virtuosos. And then there are mavens. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer William Safire is the maven's maven....Safire - using alliteration, puns, and other tricks of the writer's trade - offers a cornucopia of words, phrases, slang, and grammatical oddities, proving once again why Time calls him "the country's best practitioner of the art of columny."" "Safire probes the surprising origins of such expressions as "kiss and tell," "people of color," "stab in the back," "bonfire of the vanities," and the whole nine yards. He attempts to explain what a White House press secretary meant when he announced, "We can't winkle-picker this anymore.... "Knowledgeable, witty, and impeccably grammatical, William Safire's essays on language are an important and entertaining reference for mavens everywhere." from the Book Jacket.
Books By Safire
Listed here are just his nonfiction works; he also wrote a few novels. The London Public Library has a couple of them and the Western Libraries have lots. They are easily found for purchase and you can read all of In Love with Norma Loquendi on the Internet Archive.
Nonfiction
Before the Fall (1975)
On Language (1980)
What’s the Good Word? (1982)
I Stand Corrected (1984)
Good Advice (1985) LPL
Take My Word for It (1986)
You Could Look It Up (1988)
Words of Wisdom (1990)
Leadership (1990)
The First Dissident (1992) LPL
Lend Me Your Ears (1993)
Quoth the Maven (1993)
Safire’s New Political Dictionary (1993)
Watching My Language (1997)
Spread the Word (1999)
Let a Simile Be Your Umbrella (2001)
Fumblerules (2002)
No Uncertain Terms (2003)
The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time (2004)
How Not to Write (2005)
Safire’s Political Dictionary (2008)
In Love with Norma Loquendi (2011)
Language Maven Strikes Again (2011)
Coming To Terms (2012)
Post Script:
Post Script:
I have a copy of the very thick Safire's Political Dictionary and pulled it from the shelf for this exercise. A few pages were noted, for reasons I don’t recall, but here is what was on one of them. It provides a good example of what can be learned by poking around in a Safire book. Note his last sentence. I hope members of the NRA don’t happen upon this post.
“Your Home Is Your Castle”
--A slogan appealing to whites opposed to residential integration.
George Mahoney, perennial candidate for statewide office in Maryland, used this slogan in his 1966 campaign. It was picked up by Louise Day Hicks, candidate for mayor of Boston in 1967; both campaigns lost.
“Your Home Is Your Castle – Protect It” was regarded as a Code Word phrase by most analysts, playing on the prejudices of voters concerned with property values in their neighborhoods if blacks moved in.
The phrase “a man’s home is his castle” is taken from a proverb and was codified in English law by Sir Edwin Coke in 1604:
“For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium…Resolved: The house of every man is his castle, and if thieves come to a man’s house to rob or murder, and the owner or his servants kill any of the thieves in defence of himself and his house, it is no felony and he lose nothing…”
In recent usage, the proverb has been more the property of opponents of desegregation than of the “gun lobby.”
Safire’s Political Dictionary….1978. p.806.
