5 ms·

As a stylistic claim, their statement about however is also incorrect. They could have easily turned up examples of this exact use from well-regarded writers ov

As a stylistic claim, their statement about however is also incorrect. They could have easily turned up examples of this exact use from well-regarded writers over the last few centuries. On what basis is using however at the beginning of a main clause with the sense of 'nevertheless' unclear or careless? A worse example of 'careless writing' is writing about things you don't actually have much idea about, but with an air of authority.

svat 8y ago
Yes of course, for every single rule stated in any decent style guide, one can find examples of that rule being violated by well-regarded writers; often even the authors. That's what style guides are. What they contain are not "claims", but the authors' whimsical opinions, based on what they consider infelicitous in the writing they often encounter (in the case of Strunk, his students' essays). You could carry out this exact exercise with any style guide, even a bland and inoffensive one like the Chicago Manual of Style (which barely even gets into stylistic issues). The books to compare Strunk & White with are not grammar textbooks (I don't know why Pullum keeps doing this) but things like Steven Pinker's A Sense of Style or Ben Yagoda's The Sound on the Page or Zinsser's On Writing Well or Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft etc. I have said all this in the answer I linked to in the comment above (and comments on other answers at that question), so now I'll stop getting drawn into the same argument again. :-)
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  But I'm not talking about isolated examples, which you keeping trying to pull the discussion back to, I'm talking about widespread, 'good style' usage. What S&W recommend is simply bad style, and I (like Pullum) wish people would stop recommending it.
  - svat 8y ago
    Now that's new. All the objections I've heard so far, from Pullum and from you, were about the fact that the rules stated by Strunk & White are not rules of grammar and are often violated by good writers including the authors, etc. As I've said, that is a nonsensical objection that rests on a misunderstanding of what a style guide is. But what you seem to be saying now is that if someone follows the recommendations of S&W (and in the way intended by a style guide, i.e. not blindly), their writing will amount to "bad style". Now we're actually discussing style (matters of taste), not grammar -- that's great! Of course tastes differ so this is fully to be expected, but I'm curious: do you have examples of why you think that what they recommend is bad style? If it helps, and so that we can discuss something concrete, the original 1918 The Elements of Style is available online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37134 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37134 -- it takes less than an hour to read, and even less to skim. (At least its "I. INTRODUCTORY" is well worth reading, to set the book in context.) My opinion: It is hard to define any writer's style, but overall, the style advocated by Strunk is one of clear ("plain"), concise, and "direct" language. Of course literary writing need not conform to this style, but in most cases it serves well. For most of the examples in the book, although it is easy to imagine situations where a sentence similar to the "before" case would be better than the suggested fix, overall it seems to me that in most cases the changes would be an improvement. (And in some cases the book itself points out contradictory rules explicitly, e.g. Rule 4 and Rule 14.) One only needs to look at the very last section of the book (Exercises 9 to 25) to see how such awkward writing is still very common today, especially in writing by students, and how Strunk's recommended style would improve things.

svat 8y ago

Yes of course, for every single rule stated in any decent style guide, one can find examples of that rule being violated by well-regarded writers; often even the authors. That's what style guides are. What they contain are not "claims", but the authors' whimsical opinions, based on what they consider infelicitous in the writing they often encounter (in the case of Strunk, his students' essays). You could carry out this exact exercise with any style guide, even a bland and inoffensive one like the Chicago Manual of Style (which barely even gets into stylistic issues). The books to compare Strunk & White with are not grammar textbooks (I don't know why Pullum keeps doing this) but things like Steven Pinker's A Sense of Style or Ben Yagoda's The Sound on the Page or Zinsser's On Writing Well or Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft etc. I have said all this in the answer I linked to in the comment above (and comments on other answers at that question), so now I'll stop getting drawn into the same argument again. :-)

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
But I'm not talking about isolated examples, which you keeping trying to pull the discussion back to, I'm talking about widespread, 'good style' usage. What S&W recommend is simply bad style, and I (like Pullum) wish people would stop recommending it.
- svat 8y ago
  Now that's new. All the objections I've heard so far, from Pullum and from you, were about the fact that the rules stated by Strunk & White are not rules of grammar and are often violated by good writers including the authors, etc. As I've said, that is a nonsensical objection that rests on a misunderstanding of what a style guide is. But what you seem to be saying now is that if someone follows the recommendations of S&W (and in the way intended by a style guide, i.e. not blindly), their writing will amount to "bad style". Now we're actually discussing style (matters of taste), not grammar -- that's great! Of course tastes differ so this is fully to be expected, but I'm curious: do you have examples of why you think that what they recommend is bad style? If it helps, and so that we can discuss something concrete, the original 1918 The Elements of Style is available online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37134 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37134 -- it takes less than an hour to read, and even less to skim. (At least its "I. INTRODUCTORY" is well worth reading, to set the book in context.) My opinion: It is hard to define any writer's style, but overall, the style advocated by Strunk is one of clear ("plain"), concise, and "direct" language. Of course literary writing need not conform to this style, but in most cases it serves well. For most of the examples in the book, although it is easy to imagine situations where a sentence similar to the "before" case would be better than the suggested fix, overall it seems to me that in most cases the changes would be an improvement. (And in some cases the book itself points out contradictory rules explicitly, e.g. Rule 4 and Rule 14.) One only needs to look at the very last section of the book (Exercises 9 to 25) to see how such awkward writing is still very common today, especially in writing by students, and how Strunk's recommended style would improve things.