William Safire Dead At 79

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former Nixon White House speechwriter William Safire died this weekend at age 79.

A columnist for the New York Times for more than 30 years, Safire won the 1978 Pulitzer prize for his writings on a now obscure scandal involving an appointee of President Jimmy Carter. He was on the Pulitzer board from 1995 to 2004. The following year, the New York Times launched On Language, a weekly magazine column in the New York Times magazine in which Safire would dissect popular and political usage of the English language, tracing the origin of phrases such as "dirty tricks" and "suspension of disbelief". He wrote 10 books on English, leading the Times to dub him the most widely read writer on the language.

I certainly didn't care much for most of Safire's politics, although he partially redeemed himself to me with his attacks on Dubya's rollbacks of civil liberties. But, oh how I adored his On Language columns, where Safire could make even a discussion of the semi-colon riveting.

Pre-Olden

In today's On Language column, William Safire is taken to task for having referred to Harrison Ford, 64, as "middle-aged." A reader points out, "If he were literally middle-aged, then he could expect to live to 128." I'm reminded of my 36th birthday, when my mother called with good wishes and to welcome me to middle-age, because the life expectancy for American men was 72. Like Safire's reader, Mom's a realist that way.

Despite Mom's early start, I've only been referring to myself as "middle-aged" for about 3 or 4 years. However, my mom turns 67 today and it still doesn't quite feel right to refer to such an active, vibrant woman as "elderly" either. In his column, Safire mulls "pre-golden" and "pre-elderly" for folks like Harrison Ford and my mother, but tosses them out in favor of "midlife". That doesn't quite feel right. Ford and my mother are not "midlfe". My mom has two middle-aged children, worked for 30 years in the public school system, and lives in a house that she's paid off. That doesn't feel very "mid" anything.

My ex could technically request a senior discount ticket at the movies (although he rather die than ask), still, I'd call him "middle-aged". I guess we're all just kidding ourselves.