The Elements of Style

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book is evil. You don't have to believe me. Read a professional linguist's opinion: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/50years.pdf

I hate this book more than any other book I've ever read.

I had a history professor who was an ardent fan of this book. When I turned in my first paper in the class, he complained that I used the passive voice too often. Since I actually like to read about linguistics as a hobby and know what the passive voice is, I analyzed my paper and found only five passive verbs in the six page paper, which didn't seem like an excessive amount.

But I figured it is his class and I should do what is asked of me. So for my next paper I only used the passive voice once (for a sentence like "He was born in 1843 in Midland, Texas." or some such thing). The paper came back marked "You use the passive voice too much."

OK, I thought, that is crazy, but still, it is his class, I'll humor him. The next paper had zero instances of the passive voice. I wrote awkward and non-standard sentences like "The voters of Alabama elected him governor." and "His mother gave birth to him in 1878."

The paper came back marked "You use the passive voice too much." This was completely baffling. So I ask him to please point out any instance of the passive voice. Instead, he gave me an assignment to read this book before my next paper was due.

It turned out, that like Strunk and White, he didn't actually know what the passive voice was or why it was bad. This book does tell writers to not use the passive voice, but some of the examples they give aren't in the passive voice. And, like most of the rest of the rules in the book, they frequently violate their own rules throughout the book.


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Americans, Brits, and English

First, if you are British, let me say that I love Britain, and for many of reasons. Not least is because my Great, great, ... grandfather, Thomas Hall, left Somerset in 1836 to come to America. There are many other reasons, things that America owes to the Mother Country: common law, free speech, constitutional government. The list goes on and on. English History is one of my passions. So please, understand that I'm not looking to start a fight here. This isn't intended as an anti-British diatribe.

We (and the Aussies, Kiwis, Canucks, etc., etc.) share a beautiful, rich language. But the attitudes of some of you seem more than a little reluctant to admit that it is shared. You do not own it. Neither do we. Admittedly, your ancestors (and mine) invented it. But they also spread it around the world. And it is too late to take it back and hoard it all to yourselves.

I could cite many examples of this attitude, but let me pick the example that caused me to write this plea. I am not linking to this specific example, since it would be unfair to single this individual out.

"[T]he extent to which the English language suffers Americanisms – incorrect, sloppy grammar and words that simply do not exist in the English language – is enough to make you wince."

What makes me wince is the attitude that English needs to be protected from her speakers. English is the language that it is today because of her inventive speakers. If English speakers were as rule-bound as this attitude would have them be, we would never have the tongue we have today.

I admire stylish and well-crafted prose as much as the next person. But the rules of English grammar are constantly changing. Correct usage today is not the same as 100 years ago, and in 100 years it will be different from now. English even changed before there were any Americans, believe it or not. And a good thing, too.

And silliest of all is to complain about using "words that simply do not exist in the English language"! English speakers love to invent new words. Would you really deny all of us that right? You do realized that by condemning the use of "words that simply do not exist in the English language" you are also condemning our greatest writers, including Shakespeare? Just take a look at this "List of English words invented by Shakespeare. Are you really going to tell me that no one should use "quarrelsome" or "sanctimonious"? How else am I going to describe your behaviour?

English is a great democratic institution. We have never taken the view of that we need to protect English from foreign words. We seek out foreign words to enrich our vocabulary. Actually, "we should say that English aggressively mugs other languages for their lexical treasure". I'm proud of the contributions of my countrymen and women to English and grateful for those of English speakers around the world, past, present and future.

English Grammar

As one of the few native speakers of English at work, I frequently get pressed into editing duties, but it is only fair, since my co-workers have to put up with so many Arabic questions. So I took this challenge in Emirates Today seriously:

Can you catch what is wrong with these sentences?

“Five items or less” “I could of danced all night” “I’m going to be late for the train, aren’t I?” “He was only the pope for a short time before he was shot.” No? I couldn’t either, right away.

OK, I'm not a grammar expert, but without looking these up, I think that the errors are:
1. "Less" should not be used with discrete items - use "fewer" instead. For example, "I have less time than I need to finish building this wall." vs. "I have fewer bricks than I need to finish building this wall."
2. Should be "I could have danced all night".
3. Properly "I'm going to be late for the train, am I not?"
4. "He was the pope for only a short time before he was shot." When using only, put it with the thing that you wish to modify. As written, the author sounds very hard to impress: "he was only the pope - it wasn't like he had an important position".

Out of these four, I really only think that the last one is an error, in the sense of not conveying the message that the writer was trying to. (And yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition.) The third one especially seems dumb to call a mistake. The formal version may have the benefit of being consistent with the rules, but it sounds awkward and stuffy. I think that the proper response to "I'm going to be late for the train, am I not?" would be "Why, yes, I believe you will be, Lord Pantload".

So many of the rules of formal English are pretty pointless and difficult. Take the prohibition on splitting infinitives (e.g "to boldly go" is, strictly speaking, wrong; it should be "to go boldly"). My understanding is that this rule is in existence because it is impossible to split infinitives in Latin (because infinitives in Latin are one world: e.g. "amare" - to love), English grammarians ruled that the same should be true in English. But that is silly. English isn't Latin. And the rule adds no precision to the meaning of what is said. The same could be said of the "never end a sentence in a preposition" rule. If your meaning is clear and unambiguous, then I say you know where this type of silly rule can go to.