While I’m a fan of this little book by Strunk and White, this writer harps on about how this book has damaged the writing of generations of Americans.
So I won’t be spending the month of April toasting 50 years of the overopinionated and underinformed little book that put so many people in this unhappy state of grammatical angst. I’ve spent too much of my scholarly life studying English grammar in a serious way. English syntax is a deep and interesting subject. It is much too important to be reduced to a bunch of trivial don’t-do-this prescriptions by a pair of idiosyncratic bumblers who can’t even tell when they’ve broken their own misbegotten rules.
I have half a shelf of grammar and writing books (I know, I know. I should be reading them!) and The Elements of Style is amongst my reference books. I enjoyed reading it in the car. My favorite grammar book though is Sin and Syntax.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
I personally like the last part “It is much too important to be reduced to a bunch of trivial don’t-do-this prescriptions by a pair of idiosyncratic bumblers who can’t even tell when they’ve broken their own misbegotten rules.”
I’ve got a couple of grammar books that are like that, one page they say one thing and then a chapter later they switch it up and there’s no explanation as to why.
I’ve never heard of Sin and Syntax, will have to look that up.