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.

I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.

To 'know your place' is a good idea in politics. That is not to say 'stay in your place' or 'hang on to your place', because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place - a feel for one's own position in the control room-is useful in gauging what you should try to do.

To be accused of 'channeling' is to be dismissed as a ventriloquist's live dummy, derogated at not having a mind of one's own.

The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.

You don't want lopsided government. You don't want one side running roughshod over the other.

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.