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It seems clear that White (though Strunk seems to have been rather more serious about it) intended his usage guidance to be just that - guidance. Certainly I've

It seems clear that White (though Strunk seems to have been rather more serious about it) intended his usage guidance to be just that - guidance. Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken.

munchbunny 6y ago
Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken. I think this is a key point. In my favorite writing course in college, the professor chose to teach composition from the perspective of legal argumentation. We wrote 4-8 pages per week in the most economical and intentional way possible, poring over every word, every sentence, and every paragraph to make the language easy to understand and to make every word do work. The professor never pretended that this was the best way to write and never claimed the result would be beautiful, though he did claim that the result would be easy to understand, which it was. Peer editing in that class was the smoothest experience I've ever had in a writing class. But he accomplished something that no other writing instructor did for me before this class: he taught how to make grammar, diction, rhythm, and even connotation an intentional thought process. He also taught how to think clearly about the point you wanted to get across. That wasn't going to teach any of us beautiful prose or how to craft good plots, but it got us very quickly to the point where our writing style became deliberate.
- content_sesh 6y ago
  I've found following Strunk's "make every word count" dictum causes me to take much more time when composing. So 4-8 pages per week sounds like it would take an awful lot of time indeed
  - mwcremer 6y ago
    Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. --B.Pascal (I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.)
    - njarboe 6y ago
      This was especially true when everything was written out by hand. Editing on a computer changes the time to rewrite something by at least a factor of 10, maybe 100.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        Based on writing I read professionally, I’m not sure that people are regularly re-reading what they’ve re-written.
  - munchbunny 6y ago
    It absolutely did, but it was focused practice, so it gave you back what you put into it. I got better over time, so by the end of the class I was much faster at the process of putting the words down and then making multiple passes to clean it up.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    It's something I aspire to[0] and as elsewhere pointed out, it takes extra time. As your expected audience grows, the value of your time invested grows because it benefits proportionately more people. I've learned to explain in terms almost stupidly simple because another's interpretation can be so extraordinarily far from your intent you wonder how they even got there. Then they explain how it reads to them, and inside you groan a little because yes, it could be seen to mean that and you had no idea. One needs to user test one's writings just as much as one's software, I've discovered. [0] WIP
- bsder 6y ago
  > That wasn't going to teach any of us beautiful prose or how to craft good plots, but it got us very quickly to the point where our writing style became deliberate. I would argue precisely the opposite. You can't build beautiful woodworking until you can do a joint reliably and repeatedly. You can't play jazz on your musical instrument until you can play scales reliably and repeatedly. You had a really excellent writing professor. He completely anchored the fundamentals that you needed. Now you can actually proceed to actually write.
  - munchbunny 6y ago
    You had a really excellent writing professor. He completely anchored the fundamentals that you needed. Now you can actually proceed to actually write. Not going to speak for my own writing, but I completely agree with your point. The better you understand the fundamentals of composition, the better you understand what makes good writing good, how to hone your own style, and how to tailor your writing to the situation. I think of The Elements of Style as one of those attempts to break writing (in English) down into its mechanical elements. Whether or not I agree with its advice, I respect the approach it tries to take.

munchbunny 6y ago

Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken. I think this is a key point. In my favorite writing course in college, the professor chose to teach composition from the perspective of legal argumentation. We wrote 4-8 pages per week in the most economical and intentional way possible, poring over every word, every sentence, and every paragraph to make the language easy to understand and to make every word do work. The professor never pretended that this was the best way to write and never claimed the result would be beautiful, though he did claim that the result would be easy to understand, which it was. Peer editing in that class was the smoothest experience I've ever had in a writing class. But he accomplished something that no other writing instructor did for me before this class: he taught how to make grammar, diction, rhythm, and even connotation an intentional thought process. He also taught how to think clearly about the point you wanted to get across. That wasn't going to teach any of us beautiful prose or how to craft good plots, but it got us very quickly to the point where our writing style became deliberate.

content_sesh 6y ago
I've found following Strunk's "make every word count" dictum causes me to take much more time when composing. So 4-8 pages per week sounds like it would take an awful lot of time indeed
- mwcremer 6y ago
  Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. --B.Pascal (I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.)
  - njarboe 6y ago
    This was especially true when everything was written out by hand. Editing on a computer changes the time to rewrite something by at least a factor of 10, maybe 100.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      Based on writing I read professionally, I’m not sure that people are regularly re-reading what they’ve re-written.
- munchbunny 6y ago
  It absolutely did, but it was focused practice, so it gave you back what you put into it. I got better over time, so by the end of the class I was much faster at the process of putting the words down and then making multiple passes to clean it up.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  It's something I aspire to[0] and as elsewhere pointed out, it takes extra time. As your expected audience grows, the value of your time invested grows because it benefits proportionately more people. I've learned to explain in terms almost stupidly simple because another's interpretation can be so extraordinarily far from your intent you wonder how they even got there. Then they explain how it reads to them, and inside you groan a little because yes, it could be seen to mean that and you had no idea. One needs to user test one's writings just as much as one's software, I've discovered. [0] WIP
bsder 6y ago
> That wasn't going to teach any of us beautiful prose or how to craft good plots, but it got us very quickly to the point where our writing style became deliberate. I would argue precisely the opposite. You can't build beautiful woodworking until you can do a joint reliably and repeatedly. You can't play jazz on your musical instrument until you can play scales reliably and repeatedly. You had a really excellent writing professor. He completely anchored the fundamentals that you needed. Now you can actually proceed to actually write.
- munchbunny 6y ago
  You had a really excellent writing professor. He completely anchored the fundamentals that you needed. Now you can actually proceed to actually write. Not going to speak for my own writing, but I completely agree with your point. The better you understand the fundamentals of composition, the better you understand what makes good writing good, how to hone your own style, and how to tailor your writing to the situation. I think of The Elements of Style as one of those attempts to break writing (in English) down into its mechanical elements. Whether or not I agree with its advice, I respect the approach it tries to take.