Comments on: On William Safire's Retirement and Death

By: Glynn Wilson

Glynn Wilson — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:57:51 +0000

It’s as if the NYT has been turned over to the movie critics. Did you happen to catch the view of Michael Moore’s “Capitalism?” As snotty as it gets…

By: John Webb

John Webb — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:53:36 +0000

I wrote only about the lede, not the whole piece. “Malaprop’s treasury” seems quite good usage to me. I thought the obit made clear that he was a libertarian, but maybe I either read, heard, or saw that elsewhere. I don’t believe in Platonic ideals.

By: Glynn Wilson

Glynn Wilson — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:28:50 +0000

As always, one’s predispositions tend to influence artistic criticism.

I suspect you are still a believer, a believer in The New York Times, that is. You still believe it exists, the ideal of it.

I have personally seen that ideal tumble and fail, sometimes not even meeting the minimal expectation standard. It has been measured and tested — and found wanting…

By: Glynn Wilson

Glynn Wilson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:49:19 +0000

I understand the history but still disagree with the usage as well as the entire tone of the piece.

Maybe he was trying to capture Safire’s wit. But that would be sort of like trying to copy the style of Hunter S. Thompson. Not many, actually no one, could pull it off, so it would be best not to try.

I also understand canned obits, having done them myself and assigned them to students for years.

And as I point out, he was not as politically conservative as they try to paint him. That’s that bad definition of objective journalism raising it’s ugly head again. Unfortunately in our culture, it turns up everywhere we look…

By: John Webb

John Webb — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:24:16 +0000

I think you have misinterpreted the lede in the Times obituary of Safire, then compounded that by quoting from the Wikipedia.

First of all, the premier English language dictionary and reference source on the language, always cited by Safire himself as the first source of all sources, is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Its definition of malaprop, which it properly refers to as “malapropism,” varies in important respects from that in the Wikipedia. I can’t quote it here without violating the license, but I can send you a link from within the OED which is valid for a short period for you to use. I wish the Wikipedia had as expert a group of word sleuths as Safire’s Lexicographical Irregulars.

Second, the Times’s obit writer uses the upper case “Malaprop’s,” which obviously refers to Mrs. Malaprop, the comic character from the 1775 English play by Richard Sheridan, “The Rivals.” The writer does not say that Safire wrote a dictionary of malapropisms, rather that Safire’s articles, mostly those from the “On Language” column in the “NY Times Magazine,” constitute a treasury of language boners that would do Mrs. Malaprop proud. I have read those columns for years, and I wish I had thought to characterize them in such a tongue-in-cheek way. I’m sure Safire would have approved, and there is one way to explore that: submit the question to the Magazine’s editor and let whoever takes over the column be the judge.

As for obituary writing in the NY Times and, I assume, other newspapers, for people of Safire’s stature, the writing of the obituary begins long, the paper hopes, before the subject’s death, and the file is built over time. I suspect his was begun when he was a Nixon speech writer.

The lede, to me, seems pitch-perfect.