William Safire´s Rules for Writers …
you´ve seen them on the web, you´ve followed them writing your thesis. Where did those rules come from? The origin uncovered here.
(See also a string a posts about William Safire on LanguageLog here, here, and here). Hunt Lyman critiqued the Fumblerrules here.)
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June 29th, 2004 at 2:24 pm e
What a coincidence. David Beaver posted “NEWSFLASH: Safire reads Language Instinct” on LanguageLog (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001131.html)
BTW, comments are enabled on LanguageLog. It will be a lot of fun.
June 30th, 2004 at 12:06 pm e
Mark Liberman’s post today (on LanguageLog) leads me to this site:
Quote:
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William Safire, author and columnist for The New York Times, is in many ways a modern descendent of Lowth. For more than ten years, Safire has held forth about “correct” usage in English, acting as a self appointed grammar protector and “language maven.” Safire is an educated, witty, articulate writer who generally communicates a refreshing passion for language; he obviously delights in clear articulation, feels genuine pain when he believes language is used gracelessly, and enjoys pointing out examples of bloated and obscure expression. However, Safire is also a presciptivist: he sees himself as a guardian explaining to hoi polloi the rules of proper language use. In his 1990 book Fumblerules, Safire provides fifty prescriptions promised to promote purity, many of which I have already violated in this introduction. The last sentence, for example, violates Fumblerule # 15 Avoid Awkward or Affected Alliteration1 , while the previous paragraph violates Fumblerule # 31 Boycott Eponyms.
Safire’s handbook, subtitled A Lighthearted Guide to Grammar and Good Usage, contains a wealth of useful advice. Many of his suggestions for formal writing, such as avoiding unnecessary capital letters and exclamation points, make good clear sense. Safire cleverly breaks each rule in its formulation, and his explanations are witty and cogent. But throughout Safire’s sensible advice appear prime examples of the arbitrary linguistic prescriptions that make language a minefield for people who speak and write cowed by constant, nagging fears, groundless bromides that, if actually followed, would only impoverish a language characterized by a magnificent diversity.
—-
End quote
Maybe I was right … the copyright of contributions to NYT is indeed belongs to William Safire. Yes, he was the receipiant of the letters, but the copyrigh law has arleady established automatic protection since 1974. Did the contributors sign a copyright transfer agreement with NYT? Or maybe somewhere in the smallprint of NYT it says “by submitting your contribution you agree that …”
Anyway, Safire did publish all the contributions that he collected. But did he write all those “rules”?