William Safire, the political wordsmith who crafted speeches for Richard Nixon before becoming a distinctive conservative columnist for The New York Times, died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday at the age of 79.

His weekly essay, On Language, appearing in the paper's Sunday magazine as recently as a month ago, earned him an equivalent reputation in the non-political arena. It explored the usage, meanings and origins of words and allowed his mischievous sense of humour full rein, as when he contrasted "the president's populism" with "the first lady's momulism".