Tom Friedman: Phrasemonger, Credit Thief

Tom Friedman is proud of his trademark turns of phrase -- even the ones he only thinks are his.

In a lengthy New Yorker profile, Ian Parker describes the prolific New York Times op-ed columnist's penchant for turning complex issues into catchy slogans: "hot, flat and crowded," "a financial 9/11," etc. Friedman defends his style:

I don't mind using rhetoric. I get criticized for that a lot: it's "too cute," too this or that. But I've never had a reader come up to me and say "That book was too easy to read. That anecdote went down too easily." To simplify something accurately, you've got to understand it deeply.

In fact, Friedman gets downright cranky when people use his dust-jacket-ready phrases without attributing them. Parker reports that Friedman called Bob Woodward to complain when Woodward quoted Colin Powell talking about "the Pottery Barn rule" of foreign intervention without noting that Friedman had minted that (inaccurate) term. And Parker quotes Friedman saying, "I probably coined the phrase 'the backlash against globalization,' in The Lexus and the Olive Tree."

As it happens, the first appearance of "the backlash against globalization" in Nexis is in a Friedman column. But Friedman was merely referencing an essay by Klaus Schwab and Claude Smadja, "Start Taking the Backlash Against Globalization Seriously."

But the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention -- that's all you, Tom.