The Elements of Style: Difference between revisions
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''This outline follows the Harcourt, Brace and Company edition (1920).''<ref name="IA1920">{{cite web |title=The elements of style |url=https://archive.org/download/cu31924014450716/cu31924014450716.pdf |website=Internet Archive |publisher=Cornell University Library |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> ''First-edition bibliographic details (Ithaca: Privately Printed, 1918; 43 pp.) are confirmed by HathiTrust.''<ref name="Hathi1918">{{cite web |title=The elements of style / by William Strunk, Jr. |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012371517 |website=HathiTrust Digital Library |publisher=HathiTrust |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> |
''This outline follows the Harcourt, Brace and Company edition (1920).''<ref name="IA1920">{{cite web |title=The elements of style |url=https://archive.org/download/cu31924014450716/cu31924014450716.pdf |website=Internet Archive |publisher=Cornell University Library |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> ''First-edition bibliographic details (Ithaca: Privately Printed, 1918; 43 pp.) are confirmed by HathiTrust.''<ref name="Hathi1918">{{cite web |title=The elements of style / by William Strunk, Jr. |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012371517 |website=HathiTrust Digital Library |publisher=HathiTrust |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> |
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📘 '''1 – Introductory.''' A brief manual states its scope at the outset, promising to present the principal requirements of plain English style and to lighten the work of instructors and students by focusing on a few essentials. It limits punctuation to four high‑yield rules—three for the comma and one for the semicolon—on the claim that these will handle the internal punctuation of nineteen out of twenty sentences. Composition guidance is likewise narrowed to broadly useful principles, with the reminder that the book covers only a small part of the field. Section numbers are meant to be used when marking manuscripts, turning the guide into a practical correction tool. The text acknowledges help from colleagues in Cornell’s Department of English and credits George McLane Wood for material incorporated under Rule 10. It directs readers to authoritative references, including the Chicago manual, Oxford’s house rules, and the Government Printing Office style book, for fuller treatment and examples. It cautions that expert writers sometimes break rules, but the prudent writer follows them until mastery allows informed deviation. The chapter’s central move is disciplined minimalism: teach a small set of rules that deliver most of the benefit. The mechanism is constraint‑based practice—reduce choice, enforce consistency, and let clarity emerge from repeated application. ''This book aims to give in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style.'' |
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📘 '''1 – Introductory.''' |
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🧭 '''2 – Elementary Rules of Usage.''' Begin with possession: form the singular possessive by adding ’s even after a final s—“Charles’s friend,” “Burns’s poems”—with traditional exceptions for ancient names, “Jesus’,” and idioms like “for conscience’ sake.” Lists follow: use the serial comma—“red, white, and blue”; “He opened the letter, read it, and made a note of its contents”—but omit the final comma in business names such as “Brown, Shipley & Co.” That list practice is also the usage of the Government Printing Office and the Oxford University Press. Parenthetic expressions are enclosed with paired commas, shown by a clean model (“The best way to see a country, unless you are pressed for time, is to travel on foot.”) and by cautionary contrasts between nonrestrictive and restrictive clauses (“The audience, which …” versus “The candidate who …”). Dates and abbreviations get concrete treatment (“Monday, November 11, 1918”; “etc.”; “jr.”), alongside place and time clauses (“Nether Stowey, where Coleridge wrote …”; “The day will come when …”). A comma precedes a conjunction joining independent clauses, with attention to when subordination reads better or when an adverbial link suggests a semicolon. The chapter bars comma splices, warns against splitting one sentence into two, and requires that an initial participial phrase refer to the grammatical subject, exemplified by “Young and inexperienced, I thought the task easy.” The throughline is that punctuation signals structure and meaning rather than mere pauses, so consistent marks prevent ambiguity and steady the reader through each sentence. The mechanism is standardized boundary‑marking: treat possessives, lists, parenthetics, and clause connections the same way every time so the sense remains unmistakable. ''Do not join independent clauses by a comma.'' |
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🧭 '''2 – Elementary Rules of Usage.''' |
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🏗️ '''3 – Elementary Principles of Composition.''' |
🏗️ '''3 – Elementary Principles of Composition.''' |
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Revision as of 05:29, 8 November 2025
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"This book aims to give in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style."
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"Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic."
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"Use the active voice."
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"Make definite assertions."
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"Use definite, specific, concrete language."
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"Omit needless words."
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"Keep related words together."
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"In summaries, keep to one tense."
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"Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end."
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"Do not join independent clauses by a comma."
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Introduction
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📘 The Elements of Style is a concise American style guide compiled by Cornell English professor William Strunk Jr., first circulated in 1918 as a 43-page, privately printed handbook. [1] It presents compact rules of usage and principles of composition and famously urges writers to “omit needless words,” reflecting a brisk, prescriptive voice. [2] Harcourt, Brace republished the manual for general readers in 1920, fixing the chapter structure that many reprints follow. [3] The book’s wider influence grew after E. B. White revised and expanded it for Macmillan, published in late April 1959. [4] By its 50th anniversary in 2009, The New Yorker noted ten million copies sold. [5] In higher education, the Open Syllabus database ranks it the most frequently assigned text, appearing on more than 15,000 syllabi. [6]
Chapter summary
This outline follows the Harcourt, Brace and Company edition (1920).[3] First-edition bibliographic details (Ithaca: Privately Printed, 1918; 43 pp.) are confirmed by HathiTrust.[1]
📘 1 – Introductory. A brief manual states its scope at the outset, promising to present the principal requirements of plain English style and to lighten the work of instructors and students by focusing on a few essentials. It limits punctuation to four high‑yield rules—three for the comma and one for the semicolon—on the claim that these will handle the internal punctuation of nineteen out of twenty sentences. Composition guidance is likewise narrowed to broadly useful principles, with the reminder that the book covers only a small part of the field. Section numbers are meant to be used when marking manuscripts, turning the guide into a practical correction tool. The text acknowledges help from colleagues in Cornell’s Department of English and credits George McLane Wood for material incorporated under Rule 10. It directs readers to authoritative references, including the Chicago manual, Oxford’s house rules, and the Government Printing Office style book, for fuller treatment and examples. It cautions that expert writers sometimes break rules, but the prudent writer follows them until mastery allows informed deviation. The chapter’s central move is disciplined minimalism: teach a small set of rules that deliver most of the benefit. The mechanism is constraint‑based practice—reduce choice, enforce consistency, and let clarity emerge from repeated application. This book aims to give in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style.
🧭 2 – Elementary Rules of Usage. Begin with possession: form the singular possessive by adding ’s even after a final s—“Charles’s friend,” “Burns’s poems”—with traditional exceptions for ancient names, “Jesus’,” and idioms like “for conscience’ sake.” Lists follow: use the serial comma—“red, white, and blue”; “He opened the letter, read it, and made a note of its contents”—but omit the final comma in business names such as “Brown, Shipley & Co.” That list practice is also the usage of the Government Printing Office and the Oxford University Press. Parenthetic expressions are enclosed with paired commas, shown by a clean model (“The best way to see a country, unless you are pressed for time, is to travel on foot.”) and by cautionary contrasts between nonrestrictive and restrictive clauses (“The audience, which …” versus “The candidate who …”). Dates and abbreviations get concrete treatment (“Monday, November 11, 1918”; “etc.”; “jr.”), alongside place and time clauses (“Nether Stowey, where Coleridge wrote …”; “The day will come when …”). A comma precedes a conjunction joining independent clauses, with attention to when subordination reads better or when an adverbial link suggests a semicolon. The chapter bars comma splices, warns against splitting one sentence into two, and requires that an initial participial phrase refer to the grammatical subject, exemplified by “Young and inexperienced, I thought the task easy.” The throughline is that punctuation signals structure and meaning rather than mere pauses, so consistent marks prevent ambiguity and steady the reader through each sentence. The mechanism is standardized boundary‑marking: treat possessives, lists, parenthetics, and clause connections the same way every time so the sense remains unmistakable. Do not join independent clauses by a comma.
🏗️ 3 – Elementary Principles of Composition.
🧾 4 – A Few Matters of Form.
🚫 5 – Words and Expressions Commonly Misused.
🔤 6 – Spelling.
📝 7 – Exercises on Chapters II and III.
Background & reception
🖋️ Author & writing. Strunk, a professor of English at Cornell, assembled the handbook to state “in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style,” concentrating on a few essentials rather than exhaustive rules. [2] The original was privately printed in 1918 at 43 pages; Harcourt, Brace republished it in 1920 with the familiar sequence of usage rules, composition principles, matters of form, and lists of misused and misspelled words. [1][3] In March 1957, a copy reached E. B. White at The New Yorker, prompting his “Letter from the East” about Strunk and, soon after, Macmillan’s invitation to create a revised edition; White added a new chapter on style and lightly modernized the text. [4] The result retained Strunk’s crisp prescriptions—“omit needless words” chief among them—while broadening the guidance for mid-century readers. [2]
📈 Commercial reception. The Strunk–White edition appeared in late April 1959; it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in May, had 60,000 copies in print by August, and sold about 200,000 copies in its first year while charting across major bestseller lists. [4] By 2009, The New Yorker marked ten million copies sold. [5]
👍 Praise. Contemporary notices were enthusiastic: The New York Times urged, “Buy it, study it, enjoy it,” and The New Yorker praised its “brevity, clarity, and prickly good sense.” [4] Later accolades include TIME’s 2011 list of the 100 best and most influential nonfiction books in English. [7] In 2016, The Guardian placed the 1959 edition at No. 23 in its “100 best nonfiction books” series. [8]
👎 Criticism. Some linguists argue that the book’s prescriptions oversimplify grammar or misdescribe constructions. Geoffrey K. Pullum’s widely cited Chronicle essay contends that much standard advice in Strunk & White is inconsistent and mistaken, especially on the passive voice. [9] The New Yorker has framed these disputes within the larger prescriptivist–descriptivist debate in English usage. [10] Detailed discussions from academic linguists likewise explain why blanket bans on the passive are misguided and how passives actually work in English. [11]
🌍 Impact & adoption. In teaching, the Open Syllabus database consistently ranks The Elements of Style as the most-assigned text, with more than 15,000 appearances across college syllabi. [6] The book has also inspired adaptations and new formats: Penguin published an illustrated edition by Maira Kalman (paperback, 2007), and the New York Public Library hosted a sold-out 2005 song-cycle by Kalman and composer Nico Muhly based on the text. [12][13]
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References
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