William F. Buckley Jr., who according to the New York Times, “marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind…”
Leaving us, dear reader, for posterity, Mr. Buckley Jr., has also been kind enough to leave us with some mind-numbing, titillating parlance (leaving most to say, “Good Golly, Mrs. Molly,” that’s a ten-dollar word).
Here are my favorites:
From the primordial wisdom of the man himself:”[J]ust as the discriminating ear greets gladly the C augmented 11th when just the right harmonic moment has come for it, so the fastidious eye encounters happily the word that says exactly what the writer wished not only said but conveyed, the writer here defined as a performing writer sensitive to cadence, variety, marksmanship, accent, nuance and drama. What of the reader who misses the refinement? Well, what of the listener deaf to the special reach of the C augmented 11th?”
