William Safire, who died this past Sunday of pancreatic cancer at the age of 79, was probably most significant as a political figure; he won enduring fame when, as a Nixon speechwriter, he coined the phrase “nattering nabobs of negativity,” then spent over thirty years as a political columnist for the New York Times. Generally described as a conservative stalwart, he really wasn’t all that conservative; what he was, as the Times obituary rightly says, was “a pugnacious contrarian” who never backed down from a fight he could pick.
And oh, how he fought! The Times aptly calls him “a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns, like ‘the president’s populism’ and ‘the first lady’s momulism,’ written during the Carter presidency.” This led him, quite reasonably, to his other major column: “On Language,” which he wrote from 1979 until earlier this month. In the larger scheme of things, I suppose Safire the linguist, lexicographer, and arbiter of usage was probably less important than Safire the political writer—but in my book, his work on language was more interesting, and is more likely to endure, not only for the work itself but for all those whom he encouraged to follow in his footsteps. As one such author, Ben Zimmer of the Visual Thesaurus, writes,
On hearing of his passing, fellow maven Paul Dickson remarked to me that Safire “opened a door which a lot of people got to walk through and play with words as a vocation.” That was certainly true in my case. . . .
After becoming editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press, I fielded occasional queries from Safire and his research assistants (on everything from “go figure” to “fire wall“). He was always quick to give credit where credit was due, and he also enjoyed coming up with warm-spirited epithets for those who helped him. (I was on the receiving end of “that etymological Inspector Javert,” “netymologist,” and “longtime capo of the Phrasedick Brigade“—sobriquets that I will always treasure.)
For all his feistiness, Safire was a man who inspired personal as well as professional admiration; Zimmer describes him as “an extremely generous man, both publicly in his philanthropic work with the Dana Foundation and privately with friends and colleagues,” and concludes, “He will be remembered fondly for his openness, humanity, and thoughtfulness.” Tevi Troy relates a priceless and revealing anecdote that begins in Safire’s speechwriting days:
The day before Yom Kippur, Safire left the Agnew campaign for 36 hours to fly cross-country to Washington, arriving at Adas Israel synagogue on Connecticut Avenue just in time for the Kol Nidre service that signals the onset of the holiday.
Unfortunately, the synagogue’s rabbi considered himself a bit of a political speechwriter as well, and gave an overly political and unbecoming sermon that evening condemning “those who would use alliteration to polarize our society.” As Safire put it in his book Before the Fall, “that’s all I needed; the ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ was not a sin I had come to atone for.” Yitzhak Rabin, who was the Israeli ambassador to Washington at the time, comforted Safire after the sermon and later told the rabbi that he felt the attack was inappropriate, something for which Safire was forever grateful.
Two and a half decades later, Safire and Rabin were reunited at a dinner at the Israeli embassy. The two men got into a heated discussion about the Oslo peace process and, according to Safire, “the man sitting at the table between us—Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who never breaches protocol—blanched at the seeming heatedness of the exchange.” Rabin then told the story of that long ago Yom Kippur and explained to Christopher, ‘That’s why we can get angry with each other today without getting angry with each other.”