Buckley Talk

From an article by George Handlery in the Brussels Journal, concerning his children's accents:

This makes them to be probably the only native speakers that had a “foreign” accent put into their cradle. The drawl is a consequence of a long story. Their dad learned much of his English while watching Bill Buckley’s “Firing Line.” (They also had wrestling on KTLA Channel 5 at the same time but in the end the “man from Yale” won.) Mr. Buckley inculcated in me a love for words even though their pronunciation suffered from some studied neglect.

I know what he's talking about. When I was a leftist punk, I'd listen to Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal debate not for the content (remember, I was a liberal, I had my beliefs handed to me, no critical thought involved) but just to hear the way those guys used words. I'd have the dictionary at hand and I'd write down any word I thought I might want to incorporate into my own lexicon. I think of those days fondly, and I wince in recognition every time I hear some kid twist his sentence in order to inject "anathema" of "aver" into the flow of words. (BTW - I see nothing wrong with doing the same in order to use the word "kerfuffle")