"On Language" R.I.P.

So the New York Times Magazine has decided, a year and a half after William Safire's death (and 32 years after "On Language" began), that it doesn't want the language column anymore. Well, you never know what an editor will think is a good idea (I speak as a former member of that tribe), but Ben Zimmer's farewell column, here, is a cogent and graceful demonstration of why the sort of thing he does will still need doing for the next three decades and more. Luckily we can still read Ben's work at Visual Thesaurus and elsewhere, and the NYT Mag's loss is sure to be some other publication's gain.