The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary. Strunk and E.B (I always wondered what E. B. stood for?) are now dead but The Elements of Style continues to published. NPR recently did a funny look back at the writing manual.
Being a writer and a bit of a book nerd, I still own my original copy of Strunk & White’s classic (pictured below, yes, I pulled it out of mothballs and scanned the cover). As you can see it’s a well worn Third Edition – copyright 1979. I remember pulling it out often writing papers and essays throughout my school years. I agree with most of NPR’s look back and Strunk and White’s tendency to state the obvious, but I do remember learning for the small manual. The book itself, at least the third edition, is all text – no graphics and a long way from the multimedia requirements of today’s textbooks and short-attention-spanned readers.
But it worked and I learned. Hell, I still have it in my library, and I remember settling bets among co-workers by pulling the little book out and reciting a rule. Who else can clear up such befuddling questions about the English language as, #11 Rule of Usage: A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject? Strunk and White usually did it with a clear example. Do you remember Strunk and White? Do you remember learning grammar?
Until next time, Tim
