Even though he was a Republican and fairly conservative (NOT a hard-core religious right conservative) I absolutely adored his On Languague column and still own several of the collections of the columns. He had a great ability to make English accesible, and make me laugh, and often teach me things about the world and politics that I didn't already know.
Sometimes when I have writers block, I'll pull out one of his books to get a feeling for how much fun the language can be.
He will be missed.
