Tagged: William Safire
Oops! – II (updated)
Contrarian reader Dave Atkinson writes:
Both you and Bill Turpin used the word “fulsomely” to describe an apology. I assume you both know what you’re doing.
How droll. Bill and I probably knew once, but we, or at least I, forgot. William Safire rises from the dead to remind us. (As a bonus, he throws in “noisome” and “enormity.”)
[Update] Bill T. didn’t forget after all:
Sheesh! I’ve been lectured by Harry Flemming on the use of fulsome, so I chose it with care to describe The Coast’s apology, and did so because of its ambiguity. It’s nice that Dave Atkinson picked up on it, but I think Parker was too quick with the strikethrough.
As for me, I chose it carelessly, and I’m with Safire on this: Claiming that “fulsome” can also mean “full-bodied” (or whatever), because people use it when they mean to say “full-bodied,” strikes me as descriptivist lexicography run amok.
Late advice from William Safire
A tribute this morning by Maureen Dowd to fellow New York Times columnist William Safire, the conservative speechwriter and elegant arbiter of English usage who died Sunday, contains a couple of gems.
When White House officials wouldn’t return calls, Safire suggested leaving a one-word message explaining what the caller wanted to discuss: “Malfeasance.”
Dowd once saw Safire having lunch with Bert Lance, a former Carter administration official whom he had eviscerated in columns that won Safire a Pulitzer and cost Lance his job. When Dowd asked why he’d been breaking bread with this former nemesis, Safire explained, “Only hit people when they’re up.”
