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Title: The Elements of Style (2 Volume Set) by William Strunk Jr., E.B. White, Roger Angell, Charles Osgood ISBN: 0-939173-43-3 Publisher: National Braille Press, Inc. Pub. Date: 25 April, 2000 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $6.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.66 (184 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An Amazing Little Wonder
Comment: No one who writes should be without this book. That includes everyone from a student in school to a professor working on a scholarly paper. From a newspaper reporter to an award winning journalist. The book is such an amazing small wonder that, as has been pointed out by others, easily fits into your pocket so that you can always have it with you.
No doubt, as I write this, I am failing to follow guidance to be found in the book, but I actually referred to it while writng the previous paragraph, so hopefully you will find no erros in this review. The book is concise and advocates precisely that: concise writing. It remains an unparalled guide to proper, effective writing.
Rating: 5
Summary: Surprisingly Funny
Comment: This book, which, while not sacrosanct, surely deserves its reputation. I found it surprisingly funny. E.B. White in the Introduction tells us that his old professor William Strunk once seriously advocated introducing the word "studentry" in place of the phrase "student body," which he found horrid. Now studentry is worse, and we can all be glad it was never adopted. But Strunk, despite his observations on fiction writing in the last chapter (including, surprisingly, the old saw that any rule can be broken in capable hands), is primarily a teacher not a writer. The most famous single bit of advice he gives is "Omit needless words," which Stephen King recycles in his On Writing book. (Stephen King seems to recycle other things-I just noticed that Theodore Sturgeon, the real life model for Vonnegut's science fiction writer Kilgore Trout-made his name with a story called "It." Oh well-Shakespeare did it: talented artists borrow, great ones steal.) This, of course, is sound advice-although pretty much completely ignored by all politicians, scientists and philosophers. Hemingway took the advice and look what happened to him. I digress. One of the funny bits for me was Strunk's analysis of roadside signs and their effect on linguistic evolution. The correct adjective for being capable of catching fire is "inflammable," Strunk reminds us-but it had to be shortened (as did Throughway into Thruway) in order to fit on those sloshing trucks full of toxic liquids. It also, Strunk happily sneers, appears to illiterates to be negated by the prefix, which might make idiots to think something was fireproof rather than the opposite. (Something somewhat similar happened in one of Dr. Ruth's books, when the word "conception" and "contraception" somehow switched places; the book had to be "recalled.") Strunk is very good on giving us shortcuts to distinguish between "which" and "that," in analyzing and correcting common mistakes and showing how they both reflect, and perpetuate, a sloppiness of thinking. Some of his pet peeves, however, such as "enormous"-a word, he tells us, which should always contain a connotation of the hideous, and not be used simply to mean "very big"-have been superceded (as in fairness he suspected they might) by the continuing evolution (devolution?) of the language. Some people considered to be good writers flagrantly flout Strunk's elements (elements?) of style. Umberto Eco, for example, routinely interpolates foreign phrases (which for him would be non-Italian ones) into his prose. Stephen Jay Gould is guilty both of foreign phrase insertion and the putting of quotes-to distance himself from them-around idiomatic phrases (which he nonetheless apparently feels compelled to use). I recently heard on the radio an executive editor at Miriam-Webster say that, because of the internet and global communications, new words make it to the dictionary in twice the time they used to-in five years on average rather than ten. Other words, like "microrecorder" (used to read microfiche, a pre-computer technology) have been removed from the dictionary. I received a form letter from a well-respected Southern lawyer yesterday that would have struck out with Strunk because of its adverb "hopefully"-which is almost always means more than you want it to. Hopefully I will end this review. (Hoping referring to my mood, that I will, say, rise in the Amazon reviewer ranks? Or do I hope I will end the review?) Sloppy language is rampant: among the biggest blah-blah phrases are: "the fact that," "it is interesting to note," and "as evidenced by." Strunk busts pretentious writing wide open. And yet he is acutely aware of the limits of his analysis. This book, a labor of love by a lover of language, is great to read if you want to communicate (and think) more clearly.
Rating: 5
Summary: This is a book about clarity, not a book about choices.
Comment: And that's what makes it special. The book steps beyond rules for writing and suggests to us all that life with rules and clarity is better than a life without them. Even Professor Strunk's comment that rules can be broken in capable hands leaves one wondering exactly whose hands he had in mind.
So read it for rules about writing if you will, but look beyond for rules about the clarity of life to discover what so many find appealing about this book.
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Title: On Writing Well, 25th Anniversary : The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William K. Zinsser ISBN: 0060006641 Publisher: HarperResource Pub. Date: 18 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Elements of Grammar by Margaret Shertzer ISBN: 0028614496 Publisher: Longman Pub. Date: 01 September, 1996 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers (14th Edition) by John Grossman, University ISBN: 0226103897 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: September, 1993 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition by University of Chicago Press Staff ISBN: 0226104036 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $55.00 |
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Title: A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) by Kate L. Turabian ISBN: 0226816273 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: March, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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