Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace.

Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.

The CEO era gave rise to the CFO (not certified flying object, as you might imagine, but chief financial officer) and, most recently, the CIO, chief investment officer, a nice boost for the bookkeeper you can't afford to give a raise . . .

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

A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.

Create your own constituency of the infuriated.

George Washington had a tough second term.