Word: newman
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...EDWIN NEWMAN...
...save the English language from the galloping blight of jargon, pomposity, staleness, imprecision, ugliness and plain nonsense? Not authorities or institutions, writes Edwin Newman. The only hope is "individuals or small guerrilla groups" who practice "rebelliousness, buccaneering and humor...
...Correspondent Newman justifiably sees himself as one of those individuals. Yet his tactics lean mainly toward humor. In the battle against corrupt English, he clearly believes he serves best not as a guerrilla but as a leader of the loyal opposition, even as a court jester...
...Newman's previous book on the decline of English, the bestselling Strictly Speaking, seemed to consist largely of dreadfully apt examples Newman had stuffed into a desk drawer over the years. These prompted readers to send him their own favorite examples. A Civil Tongue appears to be written from the mailbag. It offers a plethora of mangled speech and prose, drawn not only from advertisers, politicians, sportcasters and sociologists, but also from people who should know better, such as educators and journalists (among the most cited offenders: the New York Times, TIME* and Newman's employer...
Late Bloomer. California Governor Jerry Brown, reports Newman, once declined a ride in a limousine by saying, apparently with a straight face, "I cannot relate to that material possessory consciousness." A Chicago Tribune dispatch from London describing the U.S. ambassador at the opening of Parliament explained that "his seniority admitted he and his wife to the front row." A program note for Manhattan's Lincoln Center characterized Dvorak as "a late bloomer, composition wise...