The Elements of Style

Since studying at university and graduating, I have kept this book in arms reach on my work desk since! I’m not the best with grammar, and it’s so reassuring to be able to just quickly check something over if your unsure, particularly when writing papers or minutes in a professional capacity. It’s also really small and light, so could be kept in a handbag at all times! I think anyone studying in the English language should have a copy of this, from as young as possible, so they have the confidence to use grammar correctly, and to be able to define their writing style.

I bought this to brush up on some essential grammer after having it recommended by Stephen King in his book "On Writing". Naturally, it is a work of non-fiction (and about grammar no less!) So you won't find yourself on the edge of your seat or anything as you read it. But you will find it softly engaging and interesting and find yourself pulled into the mindset of those people who take grammar a good deal more seriously than most of us. Particularly helpful is the fact that each recommendation comes with examples, so that you can see in practice what he is actually talking about, and that each part is not overly long, so you don't feel the need to reach for the metaphorical gun to put yourself out of your misery! If you set aside the contents, introduction and appendix then this book is only 85 pages long, which I actually saw as a good thing. No doubt there are books on grammar that can quite happily be used as tables in their own right, but I wonder how many normal people actually read them? It's a bit like Stephen Hawking's "Brief History of Time" in that owning a copy of such tomes doesn't automatically mean you have read them! This one I have read. I honestly don't know if it improved my grammar much (oh ok I do...It didn't! I think you would need to make more than a casual study of this to really improve much). But the door is at least slightly ajar to seeing the light and perhaps, some day, also marveling at the difference between a conjunctive pronoun and a restrictive adverb (something which I have personally never heard of, but which I feel happy to allow some Grammar God to now lay claim too). Overall, a book that is well worth your time.

Negative reviewers of this book focus on the questions of which edition it is and whether there is a better edition out there which they should have ordered in stead. Some have also suggested that the book is full of mistakes. Perhaps we have been reading different books. Page for page this has to be the best book on writing that I have read, so packed is it with useful ideas and information. I had imagined that it would be so based on American English that it would be less useful and even jarring to the British reader, but I did not find this to be so. Although style is related to taste and will vary from one writer to another, and although rules may sometimes be broken to good effect, I'm sure that any writer could sharpen his or her style by studying this book and applying its rules and 'reminders'. I will certainly be dipping into it from time to time. The one problem that I do have right now is that, having read the book, I can spot several errors of style in this review and I feel rather guilty about not taking the trouble to correct them.

It's quite easy to follow, but you do need to know (or Google) some stuff so you can understand it. It's very useful if you're a writer. My memory is a bit rubbish though, so I can't remember all the rules. I use it as a reference book.. The only thing I'm unsure of is whether it's Americans rules or UK rules.

A surprisingly entertaining as well as useful little book. Good writing is about "plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity", it says. Writers who seek to follow trends are "as good as dead", it warns. And the queasy are advised to speak of feeling "nauseated" not "nauseous" - unless they're sure they "have that effect on others". A lot of good advice has been published by writers over the years, Mark Twain, George Orwell and Elmore Leonard among them. For me, this paragraph from The Elements of Style is as good as any of it: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

I wield this book furiously at anyone who dares to disagree with my prolific use of the Oxford comma or punctuation-light lists. This was a required textbook on my BA Creative Writing and I still have it sat next to me on my desk at work nearly ten years later. Strunk and White is a handy quick reference guide for good grammar, style, and layout. Despite being a relatively old book the rules in it are timeless, and the writing style of the book itself is uncluttered and easy to follow. Every rule in the book is supported by examples to ease your understanding, making them much easier to apply to your own writing style.

This little book has the essence of good writing between its covers. Not exactly a quick read because it is essentiallly a little text book. I thought I had a reasonably good command of the English Language - yet this book has shown me a few rules I had previously not know or had forgotten. I would recommend it to all writers who wish to make their work more readable and in some areas help to cut down any ambiguities.

Some heavy reading in a small book. Showed some other people and they thought the contents was all a bit obvious.

レジェンド書籍

This is a very useful book. Have many practical advise to writ in such way that people understand what you want to say without suffering

Un libretto di poche decine di pagine pieno di ottimi consigli per scrivere bene, cioè con efficacia, stile e correttezza. Da tenere come testo di consultazione assieme agli altri bei libri sulla scrittura efficace: "On Writing" di S. King, "Writing Tools" di R.P.Clark, "Scrivere bene" di W. Zinsser. E' disponibile anche la traduzione italiana, ma l'originale rimane insuperabile.

Attention high school students about to graduate, job applicants, aspiring attorneys and diplomats, or anyone who has written a love letter: the struggle for accurate expression can be a bittersweet challenge, but it must be taken up. All of society depends on it. Written expression is the oil in social machinery. Failure to make a coherent point can be devastating to purpose. To sum it up succinctly: language matters. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, is the standard volume for linguistic clarification. Short, comprehensive, and indispensable, it is the definitive source for its subject. The greater your understanding and use of language, the greater your power to define terms and control events. Language mimics a living organism. Language has character and identity. Though its rules can be vague and full of contradictions, language should be effectively understood to be knowledgeably used. Somewhat magically, The Elements of Style directly answers most questions of usage. Improper usage is painful to see written, and lands with a dull thud when heard in the ear of the knowledgeable. For example, a common mistake in usage, is to say “Between he and I.” The word “between” is a preposition, and therefore takes a third person pronoun. Properly stated, the phrase is “Between him and me.” The proper use of that and which, and further and farther is swiftly explained, as well as the accurate use of punctuation when using parentheses. This small compendium is divided into five parts: Elementary Rules of Usage, Elementary Rules of Composition, A Few Matters of Form, Words and Expressions Commonly Misused, and An Approach to Style (with a list of reminders). The authors offer practical advice but acknowledge that writing well is a mysterious process. First rate writers are rarely satisfied with their work. Norman Mailer wrote, “Good writing is not an act to inspire confidence because it is good, but anguish because it is not better.” This may be because variables are infinite and good style eludes definition. Writers express genius and craft in varying degrees. Craft can be taught; genius is innate and cannot be taught. The authors offer modest avowal: “There is no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly…writers will often find themselves steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.” For the majority of the ungifted, which is to say most of us, The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, is an indispensable volume, and should be, like a dictionary, within arm’s reach. —Tom Casey

It is a beautiful manual that imparts the nuances of writing fluently and effectively. I believe this book is a must read for people from all walks of life. The presentation is so simple that the reader can't resist to get engrossed. The lively and intelligible examples make the task easier and help one grasp the content in one go.