Disquieting Modern Trends: William Safire Edition

For anal-retentive curmudgeons and editorial blowhards only. If the only thing you liked more than reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves was finding fault with Lynne Truss’s own usage in the book, you’ll have a grand time picking apart Yankee Pot Roast’s Disquieting Modern Trends: William Safire Edition:

There is nothing we love more on this green Earth than traveling the lay of our great nation and listening to the stupid stuff that people say. We consider ourselves pleasant conversationalists and witty raconteurs, and there is no more lovely an afternoon than one spent chitchatting with our adoring public. But we get maybe one paragraph into one of our really good stories (like, for example, the one about how we wound up eating Cheerios out of Kathy Lee Gifford’s brassiere cups) and–some knucklehead interrupts us. And when they do so, they inevitably say something that utterly annoys us.It should be noted that we are rarely upset by the substance of what people say. We are tolerant men, men willing to consider various points of view on the topics of the day. But what we cannot fathom, accept, or endorse are people who say stupid things stupidly. We’re not too hot on people who say smart things stupidly either. And don’t even get us started on people who say anything at all that contains the word “dialogue” used as a verb.

Let us dialogue with you right now: American tongues are a battlefield, and we aim to bring out the heavy-gauge shotguns to defend all that is normal, plain, and unpretentious. William Safire we may not be, but here is our list of the most irritating, illogical, and cumbersome word abuses and usages out there right now.

(via Maud)

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