In 1996, the literary editor Samuel S. Vaughan, a longtime friend of WFB, published Buckley: The Right Word, a book with a seemingly prolix sub-subtitle: “About the Uses and Abuses of Language, and about Vocabulary; About Usage, Style & Speaking; Fiction, Diction, Dictionaries; with Reviews and Interviews; a Lexicon; on Latin & Letters, Eloquence & Journalism; and More, All Drawn from the Works of William F. Buckley, Jr., His Correspondents, His Critics, Friends, and Others.” That lengthy description, which appears on the dust jacket as well as the title page, simply announces the multitudes contained within.

Vaughan (1928–2012) was no amateur: He had spent years as president and chief editor at Doubleday, and he had edited some 22 WFB titles. In fact, he had suggested that WFB turn to novel-writing, thereby sparking the Blackford Oakes series of novels that began with Saving the Queen (1976) — the book in which WFB has his CIA agent seduced by the fictional Queen Caroline.

As alluring as that conceit might be, we must stay focused here on The Right Word — the language book. It’s truly a literary gallimaufry: not a usage guide, nor a vocabulary-building book, nor a book on writing style, nor a book on journalism. Yet it’s all these things, in smatterings interspersed with Vaughan’s connective tissue.

Vaughan opens with an introduction titled “What’s It Like to Edit William F. Buckley, Jr.?” Vaughan writes that it’s “more terrific . . . than terrifying.” First you’re struck by the ideas: “For one thing, he is a pro. You never get an uninteresting manuscript. There are stimulating ideas in the air, constant surprises, a narrative rush, and a voice entirely his own.”

Although you might suspect that WFB was tetchy about editorial changes, the opposite was true: “Bill is among the most appreciative of authors. He welcomes editing and copyediting, in part because they require first of all an attentive reading. . . . He is open but hardly docile about just any suggestion, let alone one that proposes he rewrite the entire manuscript. This is because he abominates ennui much more than he shrinks from work.” To an experienced writer, this hardly surprises: WFB knew that good editing is an act of friendship.

WFB was severe in tightening his own work: “He cuts his own stuff with the joy of a surgeon. . . . The fact that he is an editor himself is lifesaving. He is demanding of his editors only as he is demanding of himself.” He commonly described himself as “ever so grateful” for “editorial suggestions, responsive to reactions on word, sentence, paragraph, punctuation, chapter changes, to thoughts about characters, plot, length.”

Hence Vaughan asserted that editing WFB was “akin to reaping the pleasures of his friendship: he is fun to be with, and to correspond with; full of enthusiasm, humor, insight, opinion.” WFB was a companionable author, as the best always are.

But let’s pretermit further description and dive into a few WFB pronunciamentos. (I’m getting into the spirit, you can see.) Here are a few favorite WFB edicts on perennial issues, all drawn from The Right Word:

and. Somebody inveighed against WFB’s beginning sentences with and, suggesting that he’d gone to a bad high school. WFB: “Verses 2–26 and 28–31, Chapter I, Genesis, all begin with ‘And.’ The King James scholars went to pretty good high schools.”

between. Someone accused WFB of misusing between with three, as opposed to two, items. “Sorry, you lose. See Fowler, who warned in 1926 against ‘the superstition that between can be used only of the relationship between two things, and that if there are more among is the right preposition.’” WFB went on to quote the Oxford English Dictionary: “In all senses between has been, from its earliest appearance, extended to more than two. . . . It is still the only word available to express the relation of a thing to many surrounding things severally and individually; among expresses a relation to them collectively and vaguely: we should not say the space lying among the three points or a treaty among three Powers.”

Democratic Party; Democrat Party. “As far as we’re concerned, it’s the Democratic Party, the alternative sounding phony-baloney.”

subjunctives. “I don’t object to using the subjunctive when its use is both euphonious and realistic. I would say, ‘If it weren’t for Mother, I wouldn’t be.’ But I would say, ‘If Jane was there, she’d be guilty.’ To say, ‘If Jane were there, she’d be guilty’ comes close to letting form dictate fact. The first clearly implies that you don’t think Jane was there; the second, that you’re not sure. . . . Subjunctives are dying out, and in part it’s a good thing. (You wouldn’t go around . . . saying, ‘If I be wrong, correct me.’)”

transpire. Someone noticed transpire occurring in the pages of NR as a synonym for happen or occur, as opposed to its traditional sense (“to become known”). WFB responded: “I’d as soon slit my throat as misuse transpire. If it was misused by others in these sacred glades, let’s hope that this way of telling them satisfies all relevant diplomatic requirements.”

On the whole, though, The Right Word is anything but a usage guide. It’s really a belletristic florilegium in which many other noted writers interact with WFB, among them Jacques Barzun, Germaine Greer, Hugh Kenner, and James J. Kilpatrick. There’s an assortment of WFB’s literary eulogies: Truman Capote, E. E. Cummings, Clare Boothe Luce, Vladimir Nabokov, William F. Rickenbacker, and Alec Waugh. There’s even a glossary explaining WFB’s favorite sesquipedalia.

Unlike many language books, The Right Word is not so much to be consulted as to be read and savored by those who remember the early days of NR and the piquant personality behind it.

One gathers that it’s a book that Buckley didn’t particularly want to do — certainly not himself. He doubted that Vaughan would find enough material to fill such a book. But it came in at a hefty 523 pages, plus 17 more of front matter. And as we approach the centenary of WFB’s birth, it’s still worth reading for its thousand little aperçus, including the witty reminder that it’s perfectly acceptable to begin a sentence with And.