If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.

A reader should be able to identify a column without its byline or funny little picture on top purely by look or feel, or its turgidity ratio.

The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.

When your government, employer, landlord, merchant, banker and local sports team gang up to picture, digitize and permanently record your every activity, you are placed under unprecedented control.

Do not put statements in the negative form. And don't start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.

Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.