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Wisdom and Wit About Words
Published by Bob Kelly
Resident Wordsmith and Quotemeister
WordCrafters, Inc.
www.wordcrafters.info
Providing the Right Word for Speakers, Writers, Ministry Leaders and Business Executives – since 1979!
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Volume 2 – Number 10 October 2004
In This Issue:
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MEDIA MISCHIEF
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The liberal bias of most folks in media has been amply and repeatedly demonstrated, but perhaps never as emphatically as it was last month by CBS talking head Dan Rather. It was bad enough that he used fabricated documents about President Bushs military service without bothering to first check on their reliability. What made it even worse was Danny Boys insistence that his story was accurate, even after it had been repudiated by virtually everyone, including many of his liberal media colleagues.
The thought of him twisting in the wind awakened the poetic muse in us, resulting in the following bit of verse, which may be even be sung, to the tune of "Danny Boy," for which we humbly apologize to the composer of that famous old Irish melody.
Rathergate
Oh, Danny Boy, the facts, the facts eluded you;
Theres lots of egg all smeared across your face!
Your left-wing bias has you hanging high and dry,
Now CBS and you have suffered great disgrace.
Could your career as talking head be over?
You shouldnt be at all hard to replace,
By someone who perhaps would be objective.
Now that would be a major change of pace!
Oh, Danny Boy, as unemployment beckons,
Perhaps youll simply disappear without a trace.
The liberals may miss you for a moment,
But, sadly, theyll have others to embrace.
Lest anyone think were being unduly harsh, it should be noted that even Rathers "60 Minutes" colleague, Andy Rooney, labeled him a liberal. Considering that Rooney himself is employed by CBS, were not sure if he meant his remark as a criticism or a compliment.
But theres no doubt about how where former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg stands on the issue of media bias. Earlier this year, The Federalist Chronicle (January 7, 2004) quoted him as follows: "If the media elites maintain their arrogance and dont change, theyll cease to be serious players in the national conversation and become the journalistic equivalent of the leisure suit harmless enough but hopelessly out of date."
Goldberg, who was with CBS for 28 years, winning seven Emmy awards, is the author of Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite, and Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News.
For a different perspective of the political scene, we recommend subscribing to The Federalist, which is published via email each week in three editions (Chronicle, Brief, and Digest) by Publius Press, Inc. For a free subscription, link to: http://Federalist.com/subscribe/ or, if you dont have Web access, send a blank e-mail to: fedlist-subscribe@thefed.com.
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THE QUOTE CORNER (Liberals)
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As long as were on the subject of liberals, we decided to present the following quotes. Quotations from all prior issues are available on our website: www.wordcrafters.info.
Liberal (n.): a man with his mind open at both ends.
Colin Bowles
Liberals always claim to know exactly what to do as soon as its too lateLiberals are the only known species whose powers of reasoning are not improved by the benefit of hindsight.
Ann Coulter
Its often been said that theres no such thing as a stupid question, but whoever thought up that expression obviously never met a devout liberal. Either that or he was a liberal himself.
Edward L. Daley
A liberal is a man who will give away everything he doesnt own.
Frank Dane
The Left sincerely believes that ordinary Americans are imbeciles unfortunates who are sorely in need of a keeper (big government) to bring us in out of the rain and keep us from drooling all over ourselves.
Don Feder
Modern liberalism seems to have forgotten the fact that if America hadnt paid the price, blood, sweat and hard work and the financial burden, we wouldnt have freedom in the world.
Sean Hannity
If there is anything that makes rich, liberal politicians happier than having power over their own money, its having power over yours.
Terence Jeffrey
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
G. Gordon Liddy
Liberals are always going to be top heavy with crazy, flailing, conspiracy-theorists. Every Republican will always be a right-wing extremist to them.
Shawn Macomber
Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good.
Daniel P. Moynihan
Some of you may remember that in my early days I was a sort of a bleeding heart liberal. Then I became a man and put away childish ways.
Ronald Reagan
In the end, the difference between Conservatism and Liberalism seems to be this: the Conservative thinks of liberty as something to be preserved, the Liberal thinks of it as something to be enlarged.
Clinton Rossiter
The left takes its vision seriously more seriously than it takes the rights of other people. They want to be our shepherds. But that requires us to be sheep.
Thomas Sowell
In the ideal world of todays liberals, apparently, there simply would be no conservatives or, if there were, theyd keep their mouths shut. For the Left, free speech is a "fundamental liberty" only so long as its their own.
Steven Zak
(Note: These quotations are taken from our collection of nearly 400 published volumes of quotations and 1.5 million entries. If youre looking for some quotes on virtually any subject, send us an email or call us at 480-895-7617. Or, if you have a quote topic youd like us to feature in an upcoming issue, email it to us and well get it on the schedule.)
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THE OED (Part 2)
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In our last issue, we told the remarkable story of the birth of the Oxford English Dictionary and the key roles played in it by a professor (James A.H. Murray) and a madman (Dr. William Chester Minor). Conceived in 1857, the massive 10-volume work, containing the definitions of 414,825 words and 1,827,306 quotations illustrating the use of those words, was finally completed some 70 years later, with the release of the last volume, or fascicle, in 1928. Its name: A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.
Rather than an ending, however, that was merely the opening chapter. Although Murray and Minor had both died long before the last volume was published, two of Murrays editorial colleagues almost immediately began updating the dictionary. In 1993, a one-volume supplement was published, along with a reprinted version of the dictionary itself, renamed the Oxford English Dictionary.
In 1989, a second and greatly expanded edition of the OED was published, containing 22,000 pages in 20 volumes, weighing 150 pounds. Available at amazon.com and other sites, it retails (new) for $1,500, with used sets going for about half that price.
Ongoing improvements in the OED have made such an expenditure unnecessary. In 1992, a CD-ROM edition was released, which is available, complete with upgrade, for less than $400. Today, the OED is also available online by subscription, at $295 a year, or $29.95 a month.
Recognizing English as a living, changing and evolving language, Oxford University Press continues its commitment to the OED, despite the fact that it has never been a commercial success. At an estimated cost of $55 million, it has undertaken massive revisions of original 19th and early 20th century material. The results, along with the addition of new words, will be published online very three months.
To learn more of this fascinating story, we recommend reading The Professor and the Madman, written by Simon Winchester and published in 1998 by HarperCollins Publishers.
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WRITING PROBLEMS? LET US HELP!
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If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, we can help. After all, weve been doing it for 25 years for dozens of satisfied clients. We guarantee our work, and we never charge a fee for an initial review or consultation. Call us at (480) 895-7617 and let us show you how we can make you look good on paper.
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A WORD OF THANKS
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Our thanks to fellow NSAer Dr. Dick Deems for taking time to send us these kind words: "Thanks for your invigorating emails. Stimulating. To the point. Always make me think! Your email newsletter is the only one I read from top to bottom."
Dick is the principal of Scottsdale-based WorkLife Design, specializing in
organizational change and development.
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SMILE AWHILE
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A niece of ours and her family recently moved from the north (Illinois) to the south (Virginia). To help them adjust to what is certain to be a completely different way of life, we offer the following bits of advice:
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A FINAL WORD
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Real journalists ask questions, they dont answer them; they ask for opinions, they dont give them; they report the story, they dont become the story.
(The Federalist Digest, April 4, 2004)
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