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I was expecting something a bit more comprehensive and damning after the link… but if one of the most objectionable and controversial claims in the book is abou

I was expecting something a bit more comprehensive and damning after the link… but if one of the most objectionable and controversial claims in the book is about adverbs modifying “unique” I think I’ll continue to recommend elements of style.

jcranmer 3y ago
For me, the most damning thing about the book is the invective against the passive. The book opens with use of the passive voice, its authors apparently unaware how idiomatic its use is in certain circumstances. It introduces the passive voice with a sentence that is in the passive voice but is so independently clunky that an astute reader would wonder "no, wait, why would anyone attempt the passive?" It then goes through a rewriting-several-examples section where only one of the four examples manages to start in the passive. Why should one use a book on English grammar that can't correctly identify English grammar in the first place?
- madcaptenor 3y ago
  (For reference, the first sentence is "This book is intended for use in English courses in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature.") Out of curiosity I googled "we intend this book" and people do seem to use that wording sometimes in introducing their books. Why don't Strunk and White do that?
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    Not certain as to why, but one plausible explanation is an opinion that using first person pronouns would be inappropriate, as it is "too conversational" or something like that.
    - madcaptenor 3y ago
      That seems plausible, and pretty much demands the passive voice. Otherwise they would have had to do something like "The authors intend this book..." which is rather strange when the authors are also the ones who wrote the sentence.
mgn115 3y ago
"Conceivably Strunk was trying to inculcate in everyone the habit of writing like Henry James and not like Mark Twain" was where I lost it. And I love Twain!
ryanklee 3y ago
It's such a bad book. Why would you continue to recommend it? It doesn't follow its own advice. It doesn't have any clue of how language actually functions. The style it purports to offer up is old and crusty. There are far better books that take a more correct view of the differences between style and correctness (Pinker's, King's). There's a reason linguists hate S&W. It's really not good.
fenomas 3y ago
> ..but if one of the most objectionable and controversial claims in the book is about adverbs modifying “unique”.. This reads like plain bad faith. Pullum lists a dozen or so very specific problems with S+W, and goes on at some length about the evidence against each. Any of those problems is more objectionable than the "modifying unique" thing, which Pullum mentions once in passing but doesn't discuss.
hgsgm 3y ago
I still remember my high school in the teacher hyper-correcting my correct use of "unique".

jcranmer 3y ago

For me, the most damning thing about the book is the invective against the passive. The book opens with use of the passive voice, its authors apparently unaware how idiomatic its use is in certain circumstances. It introduces the passive voice with a sentence that is in the passive voice but is so independently clunky that an astute reader would wonder "no, wait, why would anyone attempt the passive?" It then goes through a rewriting-several-examples section where only one of the four examples manages to start in the passive. Why should one use a book on English grammar that can't correctly identify English grammar in the first place?

madcaptenor 3y ago
(For reference, the first sentence is "This book is intended for use in English courses in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature.") Out of curiosity I googled "we intend this book" and people do seem to use that wording sometimes in introducing their books. Why don't Strunk and White do that?
- jcranmer 3y ago
  Not certain as to why, but one plausible explanation is an opinion that using first person pronouns would be inappropriate, as it is "too conversational" or something like that.
  - madcaptenor 3y ago
    That seems plausible, and pretty much demands the passive voice. Otherwise they would have had to do something like "The authors intend this book..." which is rather strange when the authors are also the ones who wrote the sentence.

mgn115 3y ago

"Conceivably Strunk was trying to inculcate in everyone the habit of writing like Henry James and not like Mark Twain" was where I lost it. And I love Twain!

ryanklee 3y ago

It's such a bad book. Why would you continue to recommend it? It doesn't follow its own advice. It doesn't have any clue of how language actually functions. The style it purports to offer up is old and crusty. There are far better books that take a more correct view of the differences between style and correctness (Pinker's, King's). There's a reason linguists hate S&W. It's really not good.

fenomas 3y ago

> ..but if one of the most objectionable and controversial claims in the book is about adverbs modifying “unique”.. This reads like plain bad faith. Pullum lists a dozen or so very specific problems with S+W, and goes on at some length about the evidence against each. Any of those problems is more objectionable than the "modifying unique" thing, which Pullum mentions once in passing but doesn't discuss.

hgsgm 3y ago

I still remember my high school in the teacher hyper-correcting my correct use of "unique".