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You can pull Strunk's from my cold, dead hands.
by DieBruderBauer 3y ago
You can pull Strunk's from my cold, dead hands.
- emodendroket 3y agoPerhaps one of the biggest blights on English writing instruction that that book isn't just ignored. http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/50years.pdf http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/50years.pdf
- ghaff 3y agoI've read it before. It's a bit of a rant and is also probably a bit unfair--but I'm not sure it's wrong either.
- mold_aid 3y agoYeah I'm always shocked at how frequently it's used by my colleagues. I will say it is used in a lot of non-writing disciplines, but I remember my first English class putting that thing in my hands and ugh. It's part of a broader issue in writing instruction that mistakes etiquette for style.
- ranko 3y agoIronically, it was ignored by the authors in much of their writing, both in "Elements" and other works.
- emodendroket 3y agoYes, if they'd followed their own suggestions their writing would not be as well loved as it is.
- tuukkah 3y agoThe point is that around you and Strunk, the language keeps evolving.
- actionfromafar 3y agoIt’s not that good.
- jjgreen 3y agoAmusingly, the original PEP-8 had "When writing English, Strunk and White apply" rather than "applies" (so treating "Strunk & White" as a plural). That subsequently corrected to "When writing English, follow Strunk and White".
- troad 3y agoLinguists universally make fun of S&W. S&W is a series of misinformed and inconsistent stylistic preferences that mediocre English majors use to status signal to other mediocre English majors.