The Elements of Style - Softcover

Strunk Jr., William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1640320741 ISBN 13: 9781640320741

Publisher: Chump Change, 1918

Synopsis

Unabridged value reproduction of The Elements of Style is the definitive text and classic manual on the principles of English language read by millions of readers. The 18 main topics are organized under the several headings, “Elementary Rules of Usage,” “Elementary Principles of Composition,” “Words and Expressions Commonly Misused,” and others.

Quotes on usage and composition from this book include the oft heard phrases, “Omit needless words,” and “Use the active voice.” 

This is the first edition from 1918 created by Strunk alone, before Strunk’s revision and reprinting in 1920, and before the revised editions by E.B. White in 1959 and forward.  

Now this book is offered in an unabridged, affordably printed volume.

 

Contents

I. INTRODUCTORY            3

II. ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE            3

1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with ’s.              3

2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.      4

3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas.   4

4. Place a comma before and or but introducing an independent clause.                6

5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma.               7

6. Do not break sentences in two.            8

7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.       8

8. Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciation.         9

III. ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION                10

9. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic.     10

10. As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence, end it in conformity with the beginning.           11

11. Use the active voice.               14

12. Put statements in positive form.        16

13. Omit needless words.             17

14. Avoid a succession of loose sentences.           18

15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form.      19

16. Keep related words together.             20

17. In summaries, keep to one tense.     22

18. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end. 22

IV. A FEW MATTERS OF FORM    24

V. WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS COMMONLY MISUSED     25

VI. WORDS OFTEN MISSPELLED 34

About this title

From the Back Cover:

You know the authors’ names. You recognize the title. You've probably used this book yourself. And now The Elements of Style—the most widely read and employed English style manual—is available in a specially bound 50th Anniversary Edition that offers the title's vast audience an opportunity to own a more durable and elegantly bound edition of this time-tested classic.

Offering the same content as the Fourth Edition, revised in 1999, the new casebound 50th Anniversary Edition includes a brief overview of the book's illustrious history. Used extensively by individual writers as well as high school and college students of writing, it has conveyed the principles of English style to millions of readers. This new deluxe edition makes the perfect gift for writers of any age and ability level.

 

 

Fifty Years of Acclaim for The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

                                                                                                                                                                               

“I first read Elements of Style during the summer before I went off to Exeter, and I still direct my students at Harvard to their definition about the difference between 'that' and 'which.'  It is the Bible for good, clear writing.”

                        -- Henry Louis Gates Jr.

 

“For writers of all kinds and sizes the world begins and ends with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. Only something to actually write about trumps the list of what is required to put words together in some kind of coherent way. I treasure its presence in my life and salute its fifty years of glory and accomplishment.”

                        -- Jim Lehrer

 

“The Elements of Style remains an unwavering beacon of light in these grammatically troubled times.  I would be lost without it.”

                        -- Ann Patchett

 

"To the extent I know how to write clearly at all, I probably taught myself while I was teaching others -- seventh graders, in Flint, Michigan, in 1967.  I taught them with a copy of Strunk & White lying in full view on my desk, sort of in the way the Gideons leave Bibles in cheap hotel rooms, as a way of saying to the hapless inhabitant: ‘In case your reckless ways should strand you here, there's help.’  S&W doesn't really teach you how to write, it just tantalizingly reminds you that there's an orderly way to go about it, that clarity's ever your ideal, but -- really -- it's all going to be up to you."

                        -- Richard Ford

 

 

“The Elements of Style never seems to go out of date. Its counsel is sound and funny, wise and unpretentious. And while its precepts are a foundation of direct communication, Strunk and White do not insist on a way of writing beyond clear expression. The rest is up to the imagination, the intelligence within.”

                        -- David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker

 

 “It’s the toughness—the irreverence and implicit laughter—that attracted me to the little book when I was seventeen. I fell in love with Strunk & White’s loathing for cant and bloviation, the ruthless cutting of crap, jargon, and extra words. For me, that skeptical directness included a tacit permission by The Elements of Style to break its rules on occasion: an alloy of generosity in the blade, a grace I still admire and still learn from.”

                        -- Robert Pinsky

 

“In the quest for clarity, one can have no better guides than Strunk and White. For me, their book has been invaluable and remains essential.”

                        -- Dan Rather

 

"Eschew surplusage! A perfect book."

                        --Jonathan Lethem

 

"Not until I started teaching writing and I reread The Elements of Style did I realize that

most everything I would be teaching young writers, and everything I would be learning myself as a writer, was contained between the covers of this slim, elegant, wise little book."

                        -- Julia Alvarez

 

 “Strunk and White seared their way into my brain long ago, and I benefit from them daily.”

                        -- Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics

 

“Since high school, I have kept a copy of this book handy. That should be unnecessary. I should, by now, have fully internalized The Elements of Style. But sometimes I get entangled in a paragraph that refuses to be ‘clear, brief, bold.’ I dip back into The Elements of Style and am refreshed.

     After Scott Simon interviewed me on NPR about whether the word ‘e-mail’ needs a hyphen (yes, it does), some listeners, including friends of mine, wondered why I had answered in the affirmative when asked, in passing, ‘Are you a drunken white man?’ Those listeners misheard. ‘Strunk and White man’ was what Scott said.”

                        -- Roy Blount Jr.

 

“Strunk & White--writing's good-natured law firm--still contains enough sparkling good sense to clean up the whole bloviating blogosphere."

                  -- Thomas Mallon

 

 “I used Strunk -- that’s what we called it, Strunk -- as a student at Berkeley fifty years ago.  I didn't know that it was new, and that we were the first generation to be educated in The Elements of Style.  I got a firm foundation in the English language, learned to write basically, and could depict the realistic world.  Then I was able to become an impressionist and expressionist.” 

                  -- Maxine Hong Kingston

 

 “Strunk and White's gigantic little book must be the most readable advice on writing ever written.  Side by side with Roget, Shakespeare, the Bible, and a dictionary, it's an essential for every writer's shelf.”

                        -- X.J. Kenned...

About the Author:

William Strunk, Jr. was a Professor of English at Cornell University and first published a private editon of his "little book"  in 1919 for his own writing students. The book was published in 1935 by Oliver Strunk.

E. B. White was a student in Professor Strunk's class at Cornell, and used the small volume himself, during which time he became respectful and appreciative of its pithy and indispensable writing advice.  Commissioned by Macmillan to revise the book, White edited and created new material for the 1959 and 1972 editions of The Elements of Style.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chump Change
• Publication date: 1918
• ISBN 10: 1640320741
• ISBN 13: 9781640320741
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 34