Clarion Content

The Clarion will admit to a certain modest affection for cliches. As a lover of language, we enjoy colorful usage, and generally believe in the spirit of go ahead and give'em the full nine yards. We try not to fall back on cliche too often ourselves when a more detailed point needs to be made. Perhaps this is what makes us hypersensitive to the misuse of a cliche by others. One such offense occurred in this weekend's On Language column penned by William Safire for the Sunday New York Times Magazine.

Safire open his piece introducing us to the New Yorker magazine's fictional cliche expert of the 1930's, then fails to heed his quoted advice to purge platitudes and banish bromides from our language. It would be no big deal except Safire, who is a policy wonk, and a former presidential speechwriter, who is occasionally asked to testify before Congress, is addressing a bigger issue than the usual linguistics essays he pens. In this case he is attempting to allay concerns about the American economy by doing an exposition of the phrase credit crunch.

Safire wishes to convince his wealthy readers that there is little to fear from the magazine's teaser of his article as, "Seized up in securitized subprime." Safire tells that readers that the alliterative crunch is used because squeeze is too mild, but crisis is too severe. This sounds good, but his own analysis contradicts his blithe assurances. Safire allows that crunch is chosen because it combines the memes of, "the sound of an icebreaker plowing through the Arctic wastes with the happy sound of breakfast cereal snapping, crackling and popping in the mouth." Would that it were so for the American economy, mere breakfast cereal popping in the mouth.

However, Safire's further explication reveals just how far from the reality this wish is. For what is a credit crunch in the financial system? It is in Mr. Safire's own words when the financial system seizes up. He reaches for an old French definition of seize's root where it meant, to seize by the wrists for flogging, and somehow equates this with market volatility, before admitting that these days the meaning of the phrase seized up is owned by auto mechanics. Flogging the economy would be bad, but what mechanics mean by "seized up," as any good ol' boy can tell you, is finished. Unfortunately, Safire must not drive himself or have been acquainted with too many mechanics or good ol' boys recently. When he blandly proclaims "seized up" means “to fuse with another part to prevent further motion, requiring lubrication or prying apart," he may be right, but he clearly misses the substance of what this fusing means.

Excuse me, Mr. Safire, but any mechanic worth his salt can tell you when your car seizes up it has little in common with the happy sound of breakfast cereal being popped in your mouth. For most folks it is more likely the crummiest day of their year, because, Mr. Safire, a seized up car is dead, junk. Fused with another part barely begins to say it, prying apart hints at it, but rest assured, Bill, when your car seizes up and things truly fuse, your car is finished. Replace the engine or throw it away or put it up on blocks in the yard, but don't expect it to rally back from seizing up. As for the American economy in these days of exorbitant war spending, extreme commodity prices and tax breaks for the wealthiest, who can say if it will rally. But one things for sure, Mr. Safire, we better all hope it doesn't seize up. Bromides aside.

Labels: Economy, Language, Politics, Safire, thought