“O, I smell false Latin.”
Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
“An insubordinate clause.”
Another of mine, from February 4, 2004, about an impertinent remark.
“the Palestinians have seemed, as in the last election, to show a preference for the evil of lessers.”
OpinionJournal July 28, 2006
“We do not consider this a credible explanation.”
The BBC when Chinese authorities detained, handcuffed and beat up one of their journalists “for his own good in case he caught Covid from the crowd” November 28, 2022 (https://twitter.com/BBCNewsPR/status/1597000489513537536).
“But to give an accurate and exhaustive account of that phenomenon would require, as Beerbohm might have said, a far less brilliant pen than mine.”
Andrew Gimson in National Post May 10, 2003 [his topic happened to be contemporary anti-Americanism in Germany but my point is the insult not its target]
“If you can’t summon your strength, at least summon your weakness.”
Me on getting up in the morning June 12, 2001.
“the decade that taste forgot”
Regarding the 1970s, and attributed to “one journalist” by David P. Deavel in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #1 (9-10/22) (in a piece saying the late Fr. James V. Schall “never succumbed to the 1970s habit too many of his Jesuit confreres had of wearing the intellectual and spiritual (not to mention sartorial) clothing of that decade”.
“This is a barrel loaded with fish, but let’s take a brief shot anyway…”
Charles Gordon in Ottawa Citizen June 8, 2004 [specifically re young people who don’t see politicians who represent their interests but of much wider application IMHO].