William Safire Quotes
English is a stretch language; one size fits all.
Safire, William. Language Maven Strikes Again. Doubleday, 1990.
This was an Amazing prediction as at the time, French was the world language of diplomacy and the arts while German was the major language for science and technology. Tesla was one of the great American immigrant scientists. He found in America the kind of intellectual and operational freedom that did not exist in the rigid, monarch-controlled, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He developed patents and techniques that formed the technological bases of radio, telephone long distance, TV, cell phones, Wi Fi, just to name a few. Most important he was Thomas Edison’s great nemesis. Edison invented DC electric generators that could power factories or entire streets in a neighborhood. Tesler invented and developed AC electrical technology which could power entire cities and he could move electricity over long distances which Edison could not. Tesla was one of the great American immigrant scientists. He found in America the kind of intellectual and operational freedom that did not exist in the rigid, monarch-controlled, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He developed patents and techniques that formed the technological bases of radio, telephone long distance, TV, cell phones, Wi Fi, just to name a few. Most important he was Thomas Edison’s great nemesis. Edison invented DC electric generators that could power factories or entire streets in a neighborhood. Tesler invented and developed AC electrical technology which could power entire cities and he could move electricity over long distances which Edison could not. Tesler was one of the first scientists to conceive of and try to implement “Big Science” where there were huge capital investments to develop machines and systems to do what had never been done before—philosophically like the CERN Hadron Collider. Tesler even convinced a large corporation to finance the construction of a massive building and tower so he could experiment with the wireless transmission of electricity. However, as the industrial democracies have learned, Big Science can only be funded by governments and it often takes sever working in consort to afford the huge investment that is required. In Tesler’s era, the federal and state governments did not fund scientific research so his work was not only technically ahead of his time but also conceptually. He anticipated most of the problems and need for a national power grid that was challenging America even at the beginning of the 21st century.
This notion was very offensive to most English literati.
Kenya and a number of other countries of the world were made up of regions and tribes who spoke many languages, Kenya, India and many others chose English and most people speak their tribal or regional language and English. In some countries French was chosen. Typically, the language selected for unity was the language of the colonizers of the area.
See {640102} for his view of the relationship between territory and nationality and {640100} for his definition of a nation which is what most people use.
William Lewis Safir, better known as William Safire (/ˈsæfaɪər/), was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He was a long-time syndicated political columnist for The New York Times and wrote the "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine about popular etymology, new or unusual usages, and other language-related topics.
