One of Readable Web’s heroes, language maven William Safire, died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at the age of 79.
Safire was best known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for the New York Times. But his deepest passion, and an endless source of delight to both Safire and his readers, was the English language. His weekly column “On Language”, first appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine in 1981.
Safire will live on as an inspiration here at RW, channeled in posts like Read An E-Book On An E-Reader With E-Ink On E-Paper, Today! and Fonts Yes, Foundries No.
And so, this feeble but heartfelt eulogy:
Bill, I hope it was a comfort knowing that all the “lexicographic irregulars” you left behind would step up. But we can only step up, and not into, your shoes. You were much too good and too self-styled for such a thing.
Here at Readable Web, I’ll be on the lookout for changes in language brought on by the movement of language from print to the networked screen. I’m just another web yenta, but I’ll do my best.
New behaviors, devices, and concepts bring new words and phrases. New words and phrases bring new behaviors, devices, and concepts. I’ll try to keep track of it, share it, and revel in it, as you always did.
Goodbye, and thanks.
William Safire at work.
No technophobe, the surrounding technology was, for 1984, state of the art.
The last “On Language” column written by William Safire was published on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009, only fifteen days before his death. As always, it was filled with keen observations and wily wordplay.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Richard, nice goodbye to Mr Safire, one of the angels. When you wrote:
“Here at Readable Web, I’ll be on the lookout for changes in language brought on by the movement of language from print to the networked screen. I’m just another web yenta, but I’ll do my best.
New behaviors, devices, and concepts bring *new words* and phrases. ..”
I never had a chance to ask Bill what he thought about coming up with a new word for reading on a networked screen — maybe screening, maybe screading, who knows that the final word will be, if any new word will replace “reading” ? — but I’ve sent him a new email via the ethersphere up in heaven and when I get his answer I will let you know.
I like your phrase “the networked screen”. Nice.
AND what I really like Richard is how at the bottom on your webpages here, you have brief introductions to longer article in the new two column format, a la Bill Hill’s ideas for three column format for pagination, question: how in the world did you get your page to look like that? I LOVE IT!
Richard, nice goodbye to Mr Safire, one of the angels. When you wrote:
“Here at Readable Web, I’ll be on the lookout for changes in language brought on by the movement of language from print to the networked screen. I’m just another web yenta, but I’ll do my best.
New behaviors, devices, and concepts bring *new words* and phrases. ..”
I never had a chance to ask Bill what he thought about coming up with a new word for reading on a networked screen — maybe screening, maybe screading, who knows that the final word will be, if any new word will ever replace “reading” ? — but I’ve sent him a new email via the ethersphere up in heaven and when I get his answer I will let you know.
I like your phrase “the networked screen”. Nice.
AND what I really like Richard is how at the bottom on your webpages here, you have brief introductions to longer article in the new two column format, a la Bill Hill’s ideas for three column format for pagination, question: how in the world did you get your page to look like that? I LOVE IT!
@danny
Thanks for the kind words.
I think Bill Safire would have liked “web yenta” as a synonym for blogger. At least those of certain stripe.
A far as “the networked screen” goes – putting print books on a Kindle or similar device (I own an iRex 1000s) has its advantages but the real magic happens when everything is interconnected.
Richard
has that term …..”the networked screen”…been used before, or did you coin it? It’s perfect.
@danny
I didn’t intentionally take it from any particular source.
It might be original because I can’t imagine coming up with that phrase without the pressure of having to “crunch” what my blog is about into a single tag line. And “networked screen” pretty much covers any device I might be writing about.
By the way, the NYTimes had an article about publishers coming out with digital books that include video, calling them “vooks”.
Dumb, if you ask me, but that’s what they’re calling them.
Cheers, rich