The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

Every serious writer should keep this little book handy at all times. I recently bought my fourth or fifth copy of it. I'd lost the last a couple of years ago. It wasn't until I read through it that I realized how sloppy my writing had become.

I'd like to second Slammr's recommendation of "Elements of Style" by Strunk & White. This is the classic reference on the subject, one of those very old books which is too good ever to become obsolete. There is nothing better to recommend to him who would write well.

The problem with such grammar books is that they do not comprise definitive rules for using the English language but rather opinions, with some of which my schoolmasters, all highly educated and well versed in the subject, disagreed. As I was taught by the latter, and not Strunk and White, I therefore tend to follow my teachers’ guidelines, for example in the way that I indicate possessive singulars and utilise commas.

Strunk and White were also concentrating on plain English. However, such writing is not necessarily the best for literature, as poets well know, and in fact could be detrimental. Taking different but analogous fields, would it not be sad if painters or clothing designers stuck to rigid simplifying rules about their compositions rather than let their artistic imaginations generate their works without such restrictions?

PUEROS

Sir Herbert Read's 1928 English Prose Style is the best work that I know about writing English prose.

BOOK? .... WAT BOOOOK?



WE DUN"T KNEEED NAW STEEEEEENKIN" BOOOK!

A-1

I cannot fine my copy of Read's book. I want to share some of its sections with you. However, Sir Herbert does explore writing fiction. He was a fine poet, novelist, and critic. If you can find the book, it is well worth reading.