Here is the blurb that appears under the title of Roger Cohen's op-ed column in today's New York Times:
It is the season of renewal and rebirth, when we step back enough to
feel the thread that binds the unity of mankind and connects us to our
forebears.
Have you ever read such nonsense? The part about this being the season of renewal and rebirth is fine, though redundant. But then we get a cascade of images: stepping back; feeling something; feeling a thread (for God's sake). The thread binds, but what does it bind? Why, the "unity of mankind." How can something bind unity?
If this sort of writing appears in our greatest newspaper, there is no hope for the language.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 