The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition |
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
Contains rules of grammar phrased as direct orders and provides the principal requirements of plain English style. Concentrates on fundamentals: the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated. Softcover. DLC: English language--Style.
Amazon.com Review
A masterpiece in the art of clear and concise writing, and an exemplar of the principles it explains.
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Customer Reviews:
• The Best Book I Read In 2009 - Sizzling Publications Review
01 January, 2010
I know what you're thinking; a grammar book, Ebony? Yes, a grammar book. The Elements of Style is the best book I read in 2009 for one reason: it changed the way I approach writing.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity - it's that simple. Say what you mean to say without all the thrills and frills and people will love you for it. This was a revelation to me. When I was in high school, I loved using big, ten dollar words in my essays; I garnered the praises and accolades of my teachers and the envy of my peers. Then I went to college and took a few English classes to see what they knew and WHAM!
My ego was officially deflated during my freshman year. I was told by a very dear English professor that my writing was convoluted. "Explicate, explicate, explicate," she would write in the margins of my papers.
I wish I had a copy of Elements of Style back then. If only William Stunk Jr. and E.B. White were there to hold my hand and whisper in my ear, "Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts." Sheer brilliance.
This book is filled with so many pearls of writing wisdom: do not break sentences in two; use the active voice; place yourself in the background. Chapter four, "Words and Expressions Commonly Misused," is a breath of fresh air for any writer who is serious about her craft.
I can go on and on about this book. As Reading Rainbow's LeVar Burton would say, "You don't have to take my word for it."
- Amazon Customer Review
• Not The Right Book!
21 November, 2009
This is not the Elements of Style 4th edition in paperback. Its a condensed version of it and should not be a paperback choice of the original hardcover. Will be returning it!
- Amazon Customer Review
• The Elements Of Style
08 February, 2010
Book arrived in the condition I ordered but did arrive the very last day within amazons acceptable delivery time.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Must Have For Composition
06 December, 2009
This reference, thouh neary a century old, still wears well and is a must have item for anyoyne interensted in effective composition.
- Amazon Customer Review
• The Book You Can't Write Without
01 February, 2010
This book is to writing and the English language in the same way that a golf swing is to hitting the golf ball. If you have to remember everything that you are supposed to do with your swing, you will become a golf statue for the entire (cross-out--entire) winter.
Reading "The Elements of Style" can also intimidate you from ever touching the keyboard. You might up end up staring at the screen feeling overwhelmed afraid that you are using, "the truth is...." when you know that you are giving yourself advance billing, which is bad, or is it--that is bad? Just writing this is making me feel nauseous. No, wait! I think it's (notice the apostraphe?) making me feel nauseated.
Why just yesterday I learned the differences between lesser and fewer, continuous and continual, affect and effect, and among and between. I learned that the difference among would have been incorrect. But the real winner was knowing that the present tense of lie is lay in the past tense even though laid sounds better, but laid is the past tense of lay, not lie or lain. (Shhheeeeeeeeeeeeeez)!
You will learn to avoid misplaced modifiers such as: "Mixing bowl set designed to please a cook with round bottom for efficient beating." You will also learn that "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens drops the indefinite article in the possessive: Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities." Learning where to put the quotation marks within a quotation and the punctuation at the end of a sentence will give you goosebumps.
This book is so helpful it should be on everyone's desk for the rest of his or her life (instead of their lives--plural and incorrect). I will make a concerted (no, scratch concerted--unnecessary word) effort to get my workplace to drop utilize, and/or, and semi-colons used as commas. Don't know if you should use whom or who? Remember that who goes with he, she, they, and whom goes with him, her, and them. All you have to do is answer the question: Whom/who did you call? I called he? No. I called him. So, whom is correct. Who called or whom called? Him called? No. He called; it's who. (Who is also on first)! Note: the punctuation goes outside the parenthesis.
The thrust (no, erase thrust) POINT of what I am saying (no, get rid of "of what I am saying") the point IS that this is the most valuable tool you can have, next to the dictionary, and it is also portable.
You will have FEWER problems with your English, if you buy this book.
Thanking you in advance for your anticipated purchase. (Of course, I wasn't supposed to write that)!
I promise Sts. Strunk and White to use fewer commas for the rest of my life. Kinda!
- Amazon Customer Review
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