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On Language; William Safire.

The following books are compilations of William Safire’s language column which appears each Sunday in the New York Times Magazine. Safire is probably the best-known “language maven” writing today. The books are lively and witty reading, but Safire is a reporter and not a researcher. As a result, his analysis is usually superficial and often incorrect. Furthermore, he has never attempted to incorporate real linguistic work into his column. These are worth looking at, but take them with a grain of salt and don’t rely on them as authoritative. Finally, being compilations of a newspaper column, these are not well organized for reference. Reliance on the indices is a must; fortunately, they are pretty good as indices go, although there are fourteen of these that must be checked.

• On Language; Times Books; 1980.
• What’s the Good Word; Times Books; 1982.
• I Stand Corrected; Times Books; 1984.
• Take My Word For It; Times Books; 1986.
• You Could Look It Up; Times Books; 1988.
• Language Maven Strikes Again; Doubleday; 1990.
• Coming to Terms; Doubleday; 1991.
• Quoth the Maven; Random House; 1993.
• In Love With Norma Loquendi; Random House; 1994.
• Watching My Language; Random House; 1997.
• Spread the Word; Times Books; 1999.
• Let a Simile Be Your Umbrella; Crown Publishers; 2001.
• No Uncertain Terms; Simon & Schuster, 2003.