Anything that keeps old words in circulation is to be treasured, the French revolution be damned.

We have a name for the sum of grievances and compromises, this sheer normality of life lived among other people. We call it civilization. Culture, society, the workaday interactions of ordinary time.

Cities on the ocean have a choice whether to turn their faces or their backs to the water, lining the shore either with pretty hotels and rich homes or dim warehouses, narrow streets, and greasy...