Sad news today from The New York Times: Edwin Newman, 91, NBC Newsman, Dies. Excerpt:
Edwin Newman, the genteelly rumpled, genially grumpy NBC newsman who was equally famous as a stalwart defender of the honor of English, has died in Oxford, England. He was 91.
He died of pneumonia on Aug. 13, but the announcement was delayed until Wednesday so that the family could spend time grieving privately, his lawyer, Rupert Mead, said.
He said Mr. Newman and his wife had moved to England in 2007 to live closer to their daughter.
Mr. Newman, recognizable for his balding head and fierce dark eyebrows, was known to three decades of postwar television viewers for his erudition, droll wit and seemingly limitless penchant for puns. (There was, for example, the one about the man who blotted his wet shoes with newspapers, explaining, “These are The Times that dry men’s soles.”)
He began his association with NBC in the early 1950s and was variously a correspondent, anchor and critic there before retiring in 1984. An anchor on the “Today” show in the early 1960s and a familiar presence on the program for many years afterward, Mr. Newman also appeared regularly on “Meet the Press.”
He won seven New York Emmy Awards for his work in the 1960s and ’70s with NBC’s local affiliate, WNBC-TV, on which he was a drama critic and the host of the interview program “Speaking Freely.”
He also moderated two presidential debates — the first Ford-Carter debate in 1976 and the second Reagan-Mondale debate in 1984 — and covered some of the signal events of the 20th century, from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Mr. Newman’s best-known books, both published by Bobbs-Merrill, are “Strictly Speaking: Will America Be the Death of English?” (1974) and “A Civil Tongue” (1976). In them he declared what he called “a protective interest in the English language,” which, he warned, was falling prey to windiness, witlessness, ungrammaticality, obfuscation and other depredations.I loved Newman's books. As a young English teacher, I found his views on usage perceptive, sensible, and extremely funny. It became hard to read a newspaper without spotting the kinds of errors and jargon he skewered so well.
That's because he sensitized his readers to the absurdity of "fatal slaying" and "young juvenile," the kinds of terms lazy journalists still thrive on. (And why isn't Newman required reading in every journalism school?) He didn't blast misuse of the language because it was wrong; he blasted it because it was silly, unintentionally funny, and a waste of the reader's time.
So I used Newman's principles in teaching English, and I run Ask the English Teacher on the same principles. Now that we've lost him, I hereby declare Edwin Newman the patron saint of this blog.
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