William Safire, New York Times columnist and passionate defender of the English language, died Sunday at the age of 79. For years I enjoyed his weekly "On Language" column in the Sunday Times Magazine. Indeed, the Safire column and the crossword were the only reasons I ever bought that newspaper. Almost every week, as I read his column, I would utter "Ouch!" after encountering another linguistic sin of which I was guilty. Why then did I continue to read him? I'm not really sure. A touch of masochism perhaps?In addition to his weekly language column, which he wrote for 30 years, Safire also penned over 3,000 political columns and was the author of more than a dozen books, many of them best sellers. Generally to the right politically, he was a great supporter of Israel and seemed to enjoy taking on the leaders of the liberal establishment. Indeed, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his scathing columns on the financial affairs of Bert Lance, President Carter's budget director.
I will miss his no-holds-barred prose. Rest is peace.
