MY FUNK AND FIGHT WITH STRUNK AND WHITE
In every single English class I ever took in my life, inevitably that slim little volume of precise, concise, and corrective grammar rules will show up on the course’s bibliography list.
That little terror: THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.
This book was first published in 1919, and has never been out of print yet, although there are to date only four editions.
It has remained pretty much intact throughout its continuous life as a monitoring, overbearing nanny for cowering students forced to write English term papers.
Strunk was a college professor at Cornell when he wrote the book. No doubt he garnered all of his students’ term paper gaffes and collected them into a quick reference guide for how not to write.
E. B White was his student at Cornell. Later, he became a highly celebrated author of such great children’s books as CHARLOTTE’S WEB, STUART LITTLE, and THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN.
[image error]Photo: Joshua Miranda
White was also an editor, and in 1957 he revised THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE into a new edition long after Strunk had died.
White kept his mentor’s rules of grammar, but also added his own chapter at the end called “An Approach to Style.”
[image error]Book Cover, 1959 Edition.
I don’t think I have used this book much in my own college term paper years. And I have to admit–I don’t use it for the several times I have to look up a grammatical issue for my fiction writing.
I find the explanations too terse and unresolved and limiting to what I want to achieve for story writing.
I need far more examples and in-depth analysis of illogical things in English like uncountable nouns and irregular verbs and not naysaying rule barking from an admonishing curt English professor because that is exactly what the text sounds like.
[image error]Photo: Andrea Piacquadio
Recently, for a class I am currently teaching, I was sent the latest (4th) edition of THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE. I cringed but decided to give it another chance and perhaps make my peace with it since it’s been many years since I first had it in my possession.
Okay, I thought, there are some good rules like when to use commas and apostrophes. Fine, fine–all’s well (see, I learned something after all).
But the tone is such a turn-off: “Use the active voice.” “Omit needless words.” “Do not break sentences in two.”
Wow. Even White in his introduction mentioned how these rules are shouted out to the reader as “Sergeant Strunk snapping orders to his platoon.”
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My beef with Sergeant Strunk’s orders has to do with the limitations he places on language and writing prose. In his army, there is no room for variation, invention, creativity.
Of course, we need basic rules of grammar. But language is an evolving creature and if only the active voice is the norm for instance, then we would never have the poetic acrobatics of the great literary masters like Marcel Proust or Vladimir Nabokov, or Virginia Woolf.
And what exactly are needless words? Sure, first year college students will often pad their compositions with fluff and verbosity to fill up a page.
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But in fiction, wordplay can be an artistic expression that invigorates the prose and elevates the story in unusual and fantastic ways.
I shake my head and almost decide again that this is a book I will use very rarely if at all.
Before I placed ol’ ELEMENTS back on the shelf, I turned to the last section, the one written by White–the full title being, “An Approach to Style (With a List of Reminders).”
What a difference in tone!
Instead of shouts and orders, White in his gentle manner, suggests (not demands) to the reader that achieving a writing style is a mysterious process, and the rules Strunk laid down are really reminders to “state what most of us know and at times forget.”
[image error]Photo: Gerd Altmann
Well, I certainly forgot how soothing and engaging this last part of the book was in comparison to the first.
There are no demands, no accusations. White is only suggesting certain things to be aware of when a writer–especially a creative writer and not someone merely churning out an essay for a class, or a grade, or a deadline.
For instance, he urges that a writer “write in a way that comes naturally.
I can agree with that, but he does caution that natural is not without its flaws. Okay. Not bad advice at all.
He stresses revision and rewrites. Of course! All writers should do that, and the best ones will do so willingly.
And I have just broken his suggestion of awkward adverbs. Well, sometimes those types of adverbs can be forgiven.
He mentions using dialect only “if your ear is good.” Damn straight!
[image error]Photo: Ketut Subiyanto
But he also says to avoid using foreign words as a way of showing exuberance (he means showing off).
There are other points about style-making that I cannot entirely agree with, but overall his offering to this well-touted book is welcome one, and really, the only reason why I will keep this book nearby and may even reread again.
At least White’s part. I don’t like being yelled at, even in print
It truly takes a creative writer to fully comprehend the enigmatic art of perfecting a writing style over the taskmaster grammarian.
If only the grammarian wrote his rules with more style.
Writing Wisdom:
“The joy of any sort of writing is that you get to creatively explode. You go boom all over the page…You’re not quite sure what’s happening, you’re not quite sure where it’s going, but you write it in the certainty that you’ll know by the time you get there.”–Neil Gaiman, Graphic Novelist, Fiction Writer.
Cheers, Irene
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