The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time : Wit and Wisdom from the Popular "On Language" Column in The New York Times Magazine

Rating:
Summary: What is the Right Word (or Words) for All Occasions?
Review: Thinking I'd finally found the 'right' book to prove Don Ferguson wrong about his writing in the local paper to use too many "that's" which he promotes as the AP version of not ever omitting even one. He and I have a huge disagreement about the use of this word.

This is a dictionary of sorts, but none you'd ever see anywhere but in America. Instead of a word, he mostly relates vignettes of two or more, which I call phrases. I was expecting to learn something from this 'expert' in the English language. His "take" on the use of "that" was only a legalese, "that said." Say what?

We have another columnist in the local daily paper named Sam Venable who told me his books are about "nonsense." He's funny. This 'wit and wisdom' from Safire's column in a national magazine is pure nonsense, full of silly anecdotes, but definitely not literary in any way. I feel he is more like Sam Venable than Don Ferguson whose specialty is grammar, though he was never an English teacher.

I was at the annual Fair last week and paid a dollar for a political button. Now, I'm not a political person but this is a Republican town and I had lived in Democrat country South of here in this great state of Tennessee. So I picked out "Vote Democratic" and walked around in the crafts building wasting time before viewing the antics of a silly hypnotist. A male about my age looked at my button pinned on my blue blouse and said "No Way." I replied, "Too bad."

"No Way" is never explained, just elaborated on. His story of "Way cool" is yucky. Who'd say that anyway besides Katie Couric who wants to be young again. I did use the word "cool" in my review of SKY CAPTAIN (read it).

I listen to Music Of Your Life on the Internet and have grown to hate the commercial Pat Boone (a fellow Tennessean) tries to explain about how fish "lingers." What on earth is that? Maybe Safire will fill us in on that verb.

Maybe you saw Dolly Parton on the CBS Early Show commemorating her sexy photo on an Air Force plane and hear her use of the hillbilly language with all the "that's" showing ignorance not brilliance. It made her a definite 'hillbilly' (perhaps he'd explain exactly what that is), but all Tennesseans are not so willing to fit that image. Now, Knoxville comes close, I do admit.

I don't like that word or phrase, "Gotcha," so popular these days. When I am discussing something, the last thing I want the person to do is 'get me.'

He mentions the "salacious roots" of slang and unusual words without giving the real meaning. I think he was just having a bit of fun at the reader's expense. That's a pun.

Oh, by the way, what IS 'codgertation'? Now, that's an interesting made-up word!