The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White

I was fortunate enough to acquire this revered manual for a dollar at a thrift store. The library wouldn't let me check it out, for they categorized it as a reference book. It's a surprisingly slim volume, under a hundred pages. The authors adhere to their own exhortations of brevity. They were condescending and affected at times, even as they instructed the reader to avoid such tones, but their composition advice is worth taking.

Much is review of the basic courtesies, as they'd have it, of the writer for his reader. Communicating effectively is the composer's essential goal. "Clarity can only be a virtue," White insists. They iterate the rudimentaries of grammar, punctuation, and the like. Strunk, especially, espouses brevity. The less said, the better. White is inclined to agree, and so am I.

I felt chastised on a few counts, such as the subject of qualifiers. Apparently, my use of "rather" is rather unnecessary and weak. "Interesting," too, is taboo, denounced as being unspecific. Not-positives, moreover, such as "not honest" or not important," should be replaced with positive assertions: "dishonest," insignificant."

One instruction, which I'd never heard before, resonated loudly with me: "Write with nouns and verbs," White says. "The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place." I'd always assumed all parts of speech were created equal, but upon reflection, White's adage rings wise. I assure you, I'll make a conscious effort in the future to write thusly.

Strunk and White have a few idiosyncratic preferences. They consider thanking someone in advance to be bad form, and the word "respectively" to be largely unneeded. White says the word "thruway," phonetic spelling and all, will become an established term. I think his prediction was a bit off. I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say "thruway," and I can't say I could define it properly.

The authors do seem to be striving for a thoroughly early-20th-century, modern-1950s, sterilized tone with much of their advice, but who could begrudge them that? It was the early 20th century. But with that said, some of the manual's assertions may be grounds for reconsideration. The pervasively ironic tone of the post-(post?)modernist now employed by many writers sometimes involves a slight variance in acceptability. How's that for qualifiers?

Despite all the admonitions to take the reader into account when writing, White closes with this: "The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one." I can say that, barring a few assigned essays, I have always inclined that way; to what end I don't entirely know. Certainly some interesting (I don't care; I like the word) Young and Sharp Submissions.