Watching My Language: (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | William Safire | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

This is the latest in the long line of collections of William Safire's New York Times "On Language" columns. Like its predecessors, it mostly focuses on language issues that arise from the politics of the day. Sometimes the political origins are a bit hazy now (Who remembers what got Bill Clinton so mad about George Bush's criticism of his "People First" economic program? Who even remembers the program?), but usually the resulting linguistic forays remain interesting (Clinton expressed his anger with the phrase, "I want their teeth on the sidewalk," and Safire turns up Shakespearean and classical antecedents). Safire is at his best when he is toiling in the Orwellian project of policing political euphemism--this is where his conservative political bent most successfully converges with his language maven status. For instance, his column--and readers' responses to it--about whether the Maryland state motto, Fattii maschii, parole femine (masculine deeds, feminine speech) is inherently sexist is a nuanced demonstration that politically correct language misses a lot.