The Elements of (not so good) Style

[dhermann1]

This is a rather eye opening (to me anyway) commentary on the perennially lauded "The Elements of Style", by Strunk and White.
The author makes some powerful arguments!
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i32/32b01501.htm

 

[Marc Chevalier]

"Elements of Style": that hoary chestnut. It was seared into our brains at prep school. I'm still unlearning parts of it.


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[Brian Sheridan]

"Elements of Style": that hoary chestnut. It was seared into our brains at prep school. I'm still unlearning parts of it.


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Don't worry. The papers written by my college students avoid those old, arcane rules from the "Elements of Style." In fact, they avoid employing most rules of grammar. My favorite is capitalizing random words in a sentence like "The Board hired a new president for the Bank."

 

[Paisley]

Ugh, I uncapitalize words like those all day long. (Except when a document refers to a specific bank, which we leave capitalized.)

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I've always thought that book was terrible. I'm so glad it's not just me!

 

[just_me]

Elements of Style and A Manual of Style (The University of Chicago Press) were the bibles when I started in technical writing.

 

[Luke 42]

Don't worry. The papers written by my college students avoid those old, arcane rules from the "Elements of Style." In fact, they avoid employing most rules of grammar. My favorite is capitalizing random words in a sentence like "The Board hired a new president for the Bank."

I'm with you on that one. I hate it when people do that. I just don't get it where people get that from[huh]


Although I'm german, and we do it with every noun

 

[Viola]

My mother does that random capitalization thing sometimes, I jokingly call it her "Jeffersonian style," as it has quite a Revolution-era feel to it to me.

Since her grammar, sentence structure, and spelling is otherwise quite high Quality and Dependable, I shall attempt to overlook it as a charming Eccentricity.

Drives me absolutely buggy, though.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

Ugh, I uncapitalize words like those all day long. (Except when a document refers to a specific bank, which we leave capitalized.)

Of course, that would be the correct way to use capitals (the spelling of which one of my students used to mean the U.S. Capitol.) A+

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I read and absorbed Strunck and White a very long time ago. They are still a great starting place for a grounding in the language. It is unfortunate that they stick too strictly to the "There is only one correct way to do it". A very arcane vision of language. They do allow for split infinitives for effect, though, which is totally in their favour.

To fully understand where not to follow blindly, read Adios, Strunck and White.

bk

 

[LizzieMaine]

I used to have terrible arguments with an ex-editor about passive voice. She was a militant Strunk and Whiter, and it got to the point where I'd throw passives in my copy just to get her worked up.

Style guides have their place. But like any tool they can become a crutch.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Don't worry. The papers written by my college students avoid those old, arcane rules from the "Elements of Style." In fact, they avoid employing most rules of grammar. My favorite is capitalizing random words in a sentence like "The Board hired a new president for the Bank."

Perhaps the student who wrote that is a Spanish speaker. The capitalization above is perfectly correct in Spanish.

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[Paisley]

The student might have been used to working with financial statements or legal documents.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

The student might have been used to working with financial statements or legal documents.

True!

 

[just_me]

I used to have terrible arguments with an ex-editor about passive voice. She was a militant Strunk and Whiter, and it got to the point where I'd throw passives in my copy just to get her worked up.

Style guides have their place. But like any tool they can become a crutch.

I can't stand passive voice in technical writing.

 

[Slim Portly]

Humbug. The author of that article sets up a straw man to knock down. The English language is a complicated and illogical thing, and to refer to Strunk and White as "uninformed" for attempting to make its rules more clear, and to call the book's legacy as "sad" and the advice within it "stupid" is preposterous and undeservedly insulting.

Surely he must concede that English is a growing and changing animal, and yet he places great value in going back to texts many decades older than "Elements" to find examples wherein famous authors sometimes did not follow its as yet unwritten rules. This is proof that "Elements" is fundamentally flawed?

The sentence from the article, "... E.B. White... took English with him in 1919..." sounds like the author is accusing White of stealing the English language. This suggests only that English needs both rules and an open mind for interpretation, two things that Mr. Pullam may wish to invest in.

 

[reetpleat]

Humbug. The author of that article sets up a straw man to knock down. The English language is a complicated and illogical thing, and to refer to Strunk and White as "uninformed" for attempting to make its rules more clear, and to call the book's legacy as "sad" and the advice within it "stupid" is preposterous and undeservedly insulting.

Surely he must concede that English is a growing and changing animal, and yet he places great value in going back to texts many decades older than "Elements" to find examples wherein famous authors sometimes did not follow its as yet unwritten rules. This is proof that "Elements" is fundamentally flawed?

The sentence from the article, "... E.B. White... took English with him in 1919..." sounds like the author is accusing White of stealing the English language. This suggests only that English needs both rules and an open mind for interpretation, two things that Mr. Pullam may wish to invest in.

I'm with you. His comments on style are not very significant, and am I crazy, or is he wrong about the "There were leaves" sentance not being passive voice? Would not the active voice be leaves were on the ground or leaves were there on the ground?

 

[Paisley]

It's been a long time since I read Elements of Style, but I recall that White suggests learning the basics before writing in a more complicated or unusual style. I believe that's what the book was supposed to be: a guide to basic writing.

A lot of professional writers would do well to take the advice to omit needless words. A big book used to be something you could sink your teeth into, now it's just something that should have been edited more.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

It's somewhat akin to a little book on attire written by Mortimer Levitt, the founder of "The Custom Shop" chain of custom-made shirt shops. Levitt's guide is at times heavy-handed and, well, misguided ... but it does its intended job well: that is, it teaches sartorial basics in a way that anyone can absorb.

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[Senator Jack]

Well, I read the writer's credit as head of linguistics and yadda, yadda, yadda, but...

It sure does. But that's because a passive is always a stylistic train wreck when the subject refers to something newer and less established in the discourse than the agent (the noun phrase that follows "by").

Okay, let's look at this one. Nowadays, there seems to be this wholesale avoidance of using a comma rather than a period to separate two independent clauses. Why did he do this between 'It sure does' and 'But'? I could see it if it were a dramatic pause in a piece of fiction, but there is no dramatic pause here. It's simple statement of opinion, so why not 'It sure does, but...'? This alone diminishes his argument in my view.

I do agree with his view on the passive voice, though. It does have its place and can be used effectively. I also agree about adverb placement. Sometimes I like it before the verb and sometimes after; it depends on the cadence and rhythm of the passage.

Regards,

Jack