Language Log

I've simply had it with all the people who keep telling me that they revere The Elements of Style because it's such a nice little book and helped them so much with their writing when they were in college that they carry it everywhere they go and give it to all their students or hand […]

The Apple is a site "where teachers meet and learn". It has a page where teachers can supposedly learn from "11 Grammar Mistakes to Avoid". And guess what: as Steve Jones has pointed out to Language Log, not a single one of these alleged grammar mistakes is both (a) genuinely relevant to English grammar and […]

Sticking a label on a manila file of household papers this morning I noticed that the instructions on the sheet of labels said "Insert opposite end into typewriter." It wasn't so much the ridiculous controllingness that made me smile (the labels had no header strip, so they were symmetrical, and it would make absolutely no […]

James Taranto starts out his latest Best of the Web column with some clever wordplay, based on the status of English as a semi-negative-concord language ("He Hasn't Accomplished Nothing", 12/1/2009): Slate's Jacob Weisberg doesn't think Barack Obama has accomplished nothing, and Weisberg ain't usin' no bad grammar neither. Weisberg disputes the "conventional wisdom about Obama"–to […]

Back on June 6, in his post "Drinking the Strunkian Kool-Aid: victims of page 18", Geoff Pullum wrote: I am not a style doctor or writing adviser, and (unlike Strunk and White) I don't think everyone should write like me. My interest here is solely in the fact that we need an explanation for the […]

A political reporter remarked on BBC Radio 4 this morning that the 157th speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, elected last night, is much hated by many members of his own party (the Conservatives). Among other things, when they are giving speeches he sometimes mutters under his breath and "corrects their grammar." Not […]

A few days ago, Geoff Pullum posted a meditation on the role of The Elements of Style in befuddling Americans about the nature of the passive voice ("Drinking the Strunkian Kool-Aid: victims of page 18", 6/6/2009). His point of departure was a passage illustrating the confusion, taken from a 2007 article by Ada Brunstein ("The […]

Poor Sam Roberts. He begins his New York Times article "'The Elements of Style' turns 50" (April 21) thus: How does a professional writer discuss "The Elements of Style" without nervously looking over his shoulder and seeing Will Strunk and E. B. White (or thousands of readers of their book) second-guessing him? (Is "second-guessing" hyphenated […]

My appearance on NPR nearly caused a car crash. Sarah Ferrell wrote in the NPR comments area: "I was in the car and rushed in to comment–I am gobsmacked." I can just see that Volvo careening around the corners on the way back from the supermarket and screeching to a halt in the driveway, and […]

All this discussion of Strunk and White (among other places, here and here) reminds me that in the Spring 2009 issue of The American Scholar, William Zinsser reflected on his book On Writing Well (first published in 1976, now in its 6th edition, with sales approaching 1.5 million copies, a figure dwarfed by S&W but […]

Even jezebel.com is getting into the S&W 50th anniversary act (Sadie, "Stylistas", 4/16/2009): The Elements of Style, Strunk and White's timeless usage and composition handbook, is 50 today. Please place a preposition after the relative pronoun in its honor. I applaud this attempt to re-purpose words that have otherwise lost their meaning in popular culture, […]

(Mark Liberman and I posted on this topic at nearly the same time. Consider this to be an amplification of Mark's posting.) Yesterday was Strunk & White day — the actual 50th anniversary of the publication of The Elements Of Style — which National Public Radio celebrated twice. Morning Edition had "Strunk And White's Venerable […]

Strunk and White's Elements of Style, first published in 1959, has now been reissued in a leather-bound, gold-embossed 50th anniversary edition (with testimonials from famous literary figures and an afterword by Charles Osgood of CBS). An AP article by William Kates about the event has been printed in dozens of places; here I'll quote from […]