William Safire

At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.

Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.

Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.

Never assume the obvious is true.

Stop worrying about the 'dumbing down' of our language by bloggers, tweeters, cableheads and MSM thumbsuckers engaged in a 'race to the bottom' of the page by little minds confined to little words.

Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.

After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction; a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine; a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine; a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate; a glutton empraces the white porcelain alter, or more plainly, he barfs.