The Best Little Book About English
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This little book is considered classic and timeless by many professors and students. I find it very helpful. It inspired me to write my own book about English.
Brandon Simpson
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An important little book...
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"The Elements of Style" was recommended to me by Stephen King in his book "On Writing". I see it as basically filling in the gaps that King left in his book. King's book was more concerned with the practical matters of writing, whereas, TEOS is all about LANGUAGE and how to use it, which King only touched upon.
And this book certainly packs a lot of information and advice, especially given that it is only 85 pages long. It has five chapters. The first chapter is called ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE and contains eleven grammatical tips, from the use of commas and semi-colons to structuring of a sentence. The second chapter, ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION, is more about writing style and ways to keep your writing punchy and fresh. Chapter 3, A FEW MATTERS OF FORM, mostly concerns physical presentation of your work and may be more suitable to formal letter writing that fiction, but may be useful to other forms nonetheless. Chapter 4 is about WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS COMMONLY MISUSED and includes some of my pet hates, including those who turn "I couldn't care less" into "I could care less", thus completely destroying the meaning of the phrase. I also learned a few new things from this section. The fifth chapter is called AN APPROACH TO STYLE and contains 21 general tips, or "reminders", about how to keep your writing consistent and stop it going bad. A lot of my description here sounds very general and vague, and makes most of the sections sound the same, but trust me that it all makes sense and has a point in the book that I just can't quite explain - I need a bigger vocab!
There are one or two minor problems with the book. For example, as Stephen King points out, it says that the most important part of a sentence should always go at the end - but is "With a hammer he killed Frank" really better than "He killed Frank with a hammer"? I don't think so, either. Also, it seems to me that a lot of this advice, particular when it comes to grammar, depends on your own comforts and preferences and those of your editor and/or publisher. That doesn't mean we should pay it no heed, but I do believe that you can quite easily get away with ignoring half of this book's advice and still be a respected, published writer.
But overall, an excellent little book that I think every writer should read, whether they are beginners or highly experienced. The writing style of Strunk himself is straightforward and formal, occasionally venturing into humour and informality, which means that you are likely to learn something by reading it, but unlikely to be bored while doing so.
Highly recommended to writers of all talents.
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Must have for all writers...informative and very readable
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Superb book. Teaches (or reminds) you of grammatical devices and the rules of language, which may sound dull but it's actually very readable and dare I say it- fun. An ideal present to anyone studying english, or any aspiring writer...or you could treat yourself, you will be glad you did.
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Good for read
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This book taught me write how to do it good and clarity.
Recommends itself.
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Sophisticated, useful and entirely unpatronising. Must own.
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It is very easy to think that because one knows the difference between "they're", "their" and "there" that one knows everything there is to know about writing and to think any book such as Elements of Style would be a patronising and didactic tome of condescension. Not at all! Elements of Style is a sophisticated and complete style guide for writing correct English which not only corrects common mistakes but clearly explains the reasons behind certain choices in a way that helps you better understand language. More than anything, it's just a very handy book to have by your side when writing anything of importance, to refer to for grammar and word use queries and edit writing into a more fluid and readable form. It's worth reading the whole way through at least twice, but more than anything it's a valuable reference book.
The core of the book (the main four chapters, by Strunk) are all you really need. I found E.B. White's appended fifth chapter to be a bit too subjective and strayed from the completely rigorous and surgically precise tone set by Strunk in the first four chapters. That would be my only criticism of the book, that small as it is, it could have been shorter, were certain bits of woffle (multiple introductions, White's supplementary chapter) cut from it.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough though. Not only will you feel like a smarter writer having read it but you will actually be one. It's very funny too, in a dead-pan, almost sarcastic, sardonic fashion - of course, without ever talking down to the reader or insulting her intelligence.
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