Safire's Political Dictionary; An Enlarged, Up-to-Date Edition of the New Language of Politics

New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1978. First Edition [stated]. Hardcover. Fair/1-inch tear in the dust jacket and into the spine. xxx, 845, [5] pages. Ex-library with the usual library markings. Stamp on fep. DJ is in a plastic sleeve. Tear/hole in DJ spine and into the book's spine. Includes bibliography and index Explains the origin of each term, how and by whom and for what purposes it has been used or twisted, as well as its perceived and real significance. Revised and updated, with scores of completely new entries added to produce an indispensable guide to the political language being used and abused in America today. Readers will come away not only with a fuller understanding of particular words but also a richer knowledge of how politics works, and fails to work, in America. Written by William Safire, the language maven we most readily turn to for clarity, guidance, and penetrating, and lacerating wit. The New Language of Politics (1968), developed into what Zimmer called Safire's "magnum opus," Safire's Political Dictionary. William Lewis Safir (December 17, 1929 - September 27, 2009), better known as William Safire, was an author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He was a long-time syndicated political columnist for The New York Times and the author of "On Language" in The New York Times Magazine, a column on popular etymology, new or unusual usages, and other language-related topics from its inception. This widely acclaimed study of the words and phrases that make up the language of American politics has now been completely revised and greatly expanded, bringing a total of almost half a million words. To lexicographers, the era of the Watergate vocabulary was a Golden Age of Political Coinage--bringing words like Cover-Up, Stonewalling, Deep-Six, and Twisting Slowly, Slowly in the Wind into the language. This latest edition follow the emergence of the latest -isms--Racism, Elitism, and Sexism--and tracks the origin of Pie in the Sky to labor legend Joe Hill. With wit and scholarship, columnist Safire defines and explores the origins of term that have burst into the American language through politics.