the elements of style illustrated

FOREWORD by Roger Angell
[ TRODUCTION to the
;3
1"1
1edition by E. B. White
Yl l l




xn
I. EL
EM
ENTARY RULES OF USAGE .
15
18
21
. ;\
.
;~
l.
2.
3.

4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's .
In a se ries of
thr
ee or more terms with a single
conjunction, use a comma after each term except
the last .
Enclose parenth etic express ions between commas.
Pla
ce a comma before a conj
unct
ion introducin g an
independent
clau
se. . I I
Do not join independent
clau
ses with a comma
II
Do not break sentences in two ]2
Use a colon after an independ ent cla use to
intr
oduce

a list of particul ars, an appositive, an amplification,
or an illustrative quotation. . .
Use a das h to set off an abrupt break or interruption
and to
ann
ounce a long appositive or summary 16
The
numb
er of the sub
jec
t determines the
numb
er
the v
er
b .
Use the prop
er
case of pronoun .
A
pa
rticipial phrase at
the
beginning of a sentence
must ref
er
to the grammati
ca
l subject. . 24
v I CO

NTE
NT
S
II.
ELEMENTARY
PRINCIPLES OF
COMPOSITION

31
12. Choose a
suitab
le design and hold to it. 31
13. Make the
para
graph the unit of composition 31
14. Use the active voice . .33
15. Put statements in positive form.
.34
16. Use defini te, s
pec
ific, concrete language. . 37
17. Omit needless words. .
39
18. Avoid a s
uccess
ion of loose sentences. . 40
19.
Expr
ess coordinate ideas in similar form 43
20

. Keep related words togeth er 44
21.
In summaries , keep to one tense. . 49
22.
Plac
e the
emphati
c words of a sentence at the end 52
III. A FEW M
ATTER
S OF
FORM
55
IV.
WORDS
AND
EXPRESSIONS
COMMONLY
MISUSED
63
V.
AN APPROACH TO
STYLE
(with a List of Reminders) 97
1. Place yourself in the background 100
2. Write in a way that comes naturally 101
3. Work from a suitable design. 101
4. Write with nouns
and
verbs. . 105

5. Revise and rewrit e. 105
6. Do not overwrite 105
7. Do not overstate 106
8. Avoid the use of qualifiers. . 106
9. Do not affec t a breezy m
ann
er. . 106
10. Use orthodox spelling. . 108
11. Do not explain too
much
. 109
C ON T I-:NTS I vi
12. Do not construct awkward adverbs. . 109
13. Make s
ure
the read er knows who is s
pea
king.
III
14. Avoid fancy words. 111
15. Do not use dialect unl ess your ear is good. "
11:3
16. Be cl
ear
. . 1
1:3
17. Do not inject opinion 114
18. Use fi
gur
es of speech sparingly 115

19. Do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity 115
20. Avoid foreign languages. ' 115
21. Pref
er
the standa rd to the offbeat.
li
S
VI. SPELLING
(from
the first edition) 122
GLOSSAHY 125
I
NDEX
1
~
4
BACKWOHD 147
COPYRIGHT PAGE
l
S ~
vii I CON
TENTS
Foreword
hy
Rog
er
An
ge
ll
The first writ

er
1 watched at work was my stepfather, E. B.
Whit
e.
Eac h Tue
sda
y morni ng, he wonld close his study door
and
sit down to
write
the "Notes and Comment" page for The New Yorker. The task was
familiar to him- he was r
equi
red to file a few
hundr
ed words of edito-
rial or personal commentary on some topic in or out of the news that
w
eek-
hut the sounds of his typewriter from his room came in hesitant
burs
ts, with long sile
nces
in between. H
our
s went by. Summoned at last
for lunch , he was silent
and
preoccupied, and soon exc used hims
elf

to
get
back 10 the job. When the eopy w
ent
off at last, in the afternoon
RFD
pouch-e-we were in Maine, a day's mail away from New York
-h
e
rar
ely
see
med satisfied. " It isn't good enough," he said sometimes. "I wish it
were
be tte r,'
Writing is hard, even for authors who do it all the time. Less fr
equ
ent
practitioners- the
job
app
lica
nt; the business executive with an
annual
report to gel out; the high school senior with a Faulkn
er
assi
gnmen
t; the
gra

duate
-sc hool student with her thesis proposal; the writer of a lett
er
of
eondole
nee
-o
ften get stuc k in an awkward passage or find
muddl
e on
their
scree
ns, and then blame themselves. What should be easy and
flowing looks tangled or feeble or overblown- not what was m
eant
at
all. What's wrong with me, each one thinks. Why can't 1 get this right?
It was this recurring questi on, pu t to
him
self,
that
must
have
inspire
d White to revive and add to a textbook by an
En
glish professor
of his, Will Strunk Jr., that he had first read in college,
and
to get it

I v i i i
published.
The
result,
this
quiet
book,
has
been
in
print
for forty years,
and
has
offered more
than
ten
million writers a
helping
hand,
White
knew
that
a
compendium
of specific tips
-about
singular
and
plural

verbs,
parentheses,
the
"that"-"which"
scuffle,
and
many
others-
could
clear
up a
recalcitrant
sentence
or
subclause
when
quickly
recon-
sulted,
and
that
the
larger
principles
needed
to be
kept
in
plain
sight,

like a wall sampler.
How
simple
they
look,
set
down
here
in White's
last
chapter:
"Write
in a way
that
comes
naturally,"
"Revise
and rewrite,"
"Do
not
explain
too
much,"
and
the rest; above all, the
cleansing,
clarion
"Be
clear."
How often I

have
turned
to
them,
in the book or in my mind, while try-
ing to
start
or
unblock
or revise some
piece
of my own writing! They
help-they
really do.
They
work.
They
are
the way.
E. B. White's
prose
is
celebrated
for its
ease
and
clarity
-just
think
of Charloue:s

Web-but
mainta
ining this
standard
requ ired
endless
attention.
When
the new
issue
of The New Yorker turned up in Maine, I
sometimes
saw him
reading
his
"Comment"
piece
ov
er
to himself, with
only a sl ightly different expression than the one he'd worn on the day it
went off. W
ell,
O.K., he
seemed
to be saying. At least I got
the
ele-
ments
right.

This
edition
has
been
modestly
updated
, with word processors and
air
conditioners
making
their
first
appearance
among White's refer-
ences,
and
with a light r
edistribution
of
genders
to permit a feminine
pronoun
or female
fanner
to
take
their
places
among the males who
once

innocently
served
him. Sylvia
Plath
has
knocked
Keats out of the
box,
and
I notice that
"America"
has become
"this
country" in a
sample
text, to forestall a
subsequent
and
possibly
demeaning
"she"
in the
same
paragraph.
What
is not
here
is anything about
E-mail-the
rules-

free, lower
ease
flow that cheerfully
keeps
us in touch
these
days. E-mail
is conversation, and it may be
replacing
the
sweet
and
endless
talking
we
once
sustained
(and
tucked
away) within the informul letter, But we
are
all writers
and
readers
as well as
communicators,
with the need at
times
to
please

and
satisfy ourselves (as
White
put
it) with the
clear
and
almost
perfect
thought.
ix I
FOlt
EWORD
I
ntroduc
tion
*
At
the
close of the first World War, when I was a stude nt at Cornell,
I took a course called English 8. My professor was William
Strunk
Jr.
A
textbook r
equir
ed for the course was a slim volume called The Elements
of

Style, whose author was the professor himself. The y
ear
was 1919.
The
book was known on
campus
in those days as
"th
e little book," with
the
str
ess
on the word "liuI
e."
It
had been privately
printed
by the
author.
I passed the course, graduated from the university,
and
forgot the
book
but
not the professor. Some thirt y-eight years lat er, the book
bobbed up again in my life when Macmillan commiss ioned me to revise
it for the college m
ark
et
and

the general trade. Me
antime
,
Prof
essor
Strunk
had
died.
The Elements
qf
Style, when I reexamined it in
1957
, seemed to me
to contain rich deposits of gold.
It
was Will Strunk's parvum opus, his
attempt to cut the vast triangle
of' English rhetoric down to size
and
write its rules
and
principles on the h
ead
of a pin. Will hims
elf
had
hung
the tag "litt
le"
on the book; he ref

err
ed to it sardonically
and
with
sec ret
prid
e as "the little book," always giving the word "litt
le"
a spe-
cial twist, as though he were putting a spin on a ball. In its original form,
it was a forty-three page summation of the case for cleanliness, ac
cur
acy,
and
brevity in the use of English. Today, fifty-two y
ear
s later, its vigor
is
unimpair
ed,
and
for s
hee
r pith I
think
it probably sets a record that
is not likely to be broken. Even after I got through tampering with it, it
"E.
B. White wrote this introduction for th
e]

979 edition.
I NTH OlJ UC
TI
ON I xi i
was still a tiny thing, a barely tarnished gem. Seven rules of usage,
eleven principles of composition, a few matters of form, and a list of
words and expressions commonly misus
ed-th
at was the sum and sub-
stance of Professor Strunk's work. Somewhat audaciously, and in an
atte mpt to give my publisher his money's worth, I
add
ed a chapter
called "An Approach to Style," setting forth my own prejudices, my
notions of error, my articles of faith. This chap
ter
(Chapter V) is
addressed
par
ticularly to those who feel that English prose composition
is not only a necessary skill
but
a sensible pursuit as w
ell-
a way to
spend one's days. I think Professor St
runk
would not object to that.
A second edition of the book was published in 1
972

. I have now
completed a third revision. Chapter IV has been refurbished with words
and expressions of a recent vintage; four rules of usage have been added
to Chapter
1. Fresh examples have been ad
ded
to some of the rules and
principles, amplification has reared its head in a few places in the text
where I felt an assault could successfully be made on the bastions of its
brevity, and in ge
nera
l the book has received a thorough overh
aul-to
correct errors, delete bewhiskered entries, and enliven the argument.
Professor Strunk was a positive man. His book contains rules of
grammar phrased as direct orders. In the main
1have not tried to soften
his commands, or modify his pronouncements, or remove the s
pecia
l
ob
jec
ts of his scorn. I have tried, instead, to preserve the flavor of his
discontent while slightly enlarging the scope of the disc ussion.
The
Elements
of
Sty
le does not pretend to survey the whole field. Rat
her

it
proposes to give in brief space the principal requirements of plain
English style.
It concentrates on fundamentals: the rules of usage and
principles of composition most commonly violated.
The reader will soon discover that these rules and principles are in
the form of sharp commands, Sergeant Strunk snapping orders to his
platoon.
"Do not join independent clauses with a comma." (Rule 5.)
"Do not break sentences in two." (Rule 6.) "Use the active voice." (Rule
14.) "Avoid a succession o
flo
ose sentences." (Rule 18.) "In summaries ,
keep to one tense." (Rule 21.) Each rule of principle is followed by a
short hortatory essay, and usually the exhortation is followed by, or
in
ter
larded with, examples in
para
llel columns- the true vs. the false,
the right vs. the wrong, the timid vs. the bold, the ragged vs. the trim.
From every line there peers out at me the puckish face of my professor,
x
iii
I I NTR ODUCTIO N
his short
hair
parted
n
eatl

y in
the
middle
and
combed down over his
for
ehead
, his eyes
blinkin
g inces
santl
y b
ehind
steel
-rimmed s
pec
ta
cles
as though he had just emerged into strong light, his lip s
nibblin
g
eac
h
other like nervous horses, his smile shuttling to
and
fro und er a carefully
edged mustache.
"Omit needless words!" cri es the
auth
or on page 39,

and
into that
imperati ve Will
Strunk
really
put
his heart
and
soul. In the days when
I was sitting in his
class
, he omitted so many needl
ess
words,
and
omit-
ted them so forcibly and with such eagern ess
and
obvious relish, that he
often
see
med in the position of having shortchanged hims
elf-
a man
left with nothing more to say yet with time to fill, a radio prophet who
had out-di
stan
ced the clock . Will Strunk got out of this pr
edicam
ent

by
a simple trick: he uttered every sentence three times. When he deliv-
ered his oration on brevity to the
cla
ss, he l
ean
ed forward over his desk,
grasped his coat
lap
els in his
hand
s,
and
, in a husky, conspira torial
voice, said, " Rule Seventeen. Omit needless words! Omit needless
words! Omit nee dless words!"
He was a memorable man, friendly and funn y. Unde r the remem-
bered sting of his kindly lash, I have
been trying to omit needl ess words
si
nce
1919, and although there are still many words that cry for omission
and the huge task will never be accomplished, it is exc iting to me to
reread the masterly Strunkian elaboration of this noble theme.
It goes:
Vigorous writin g is concise. A se ntence should contain no
unn ecessary words, a paragraph no unn ecessa ry se nte
nces,
for the
sam

e reason that a
dra
wing should have no
unn
eces
sary
lines and
a ma
chin
e no unn ecessary parts. This r
equir
es not that the writer
mak e all sente
nces
short or avoid all detail
and
treat sub
jec
ts only
in outline, but that eve ry word tell.
Th
er
e you have a short, valuable
essay
on the n
atur
e
and
b
eaut

y of
br
evity- fifty-nine words that could cha nge the world. Having recov-
ered from his adv
entur
e in prolixity (fifty-nine words were a lot of words
in the tight world of William Strunk
jr.), the
prof
es
sor
proceeds to give
a few
qui
ck lessons in pruning. Student s l
earn
to cut the deadwood from
"this is a sub
jec
t that," r
edu
cing it to "this
subje
ct," a saving of three
words. They le
arn
to trim "used for fuel
purpos
es" down to
"us

ed for
fuel." They l
earn
that they are being cha
tter
boxes when the y say "the
INTH OIl UCTI ON I
xiv
question as to wh
eth
er" and that they should
ju
st say "whether"- a sav-
ing of four words out of a possible five.
The
professor devotes a spec ial
para
graph to the vile expression the
fa
ct that, a
phra
se that ca
uses
him to qui ver with revulsion. The expres-
sion, he says, should be "revised out of every sente
nce
in which it
occ
urs."
But a shadow of gloom see ms to hang over the page,

and
you
f
eel
that he knows how hopeless his cause is. I suppose I have written
the
fa
ct that a thousand times in the h
eat
of composition, revised it out
maybe five
hundr
ed times in the cool aft
ermath
. To be balling only .500
this late in the
seas
on, to fail h
alf
the time to connec t with this fat pitch,
sadde ns me, for it
see
ms a betrayal of the man who showed me how to
swing at it and made the swinging seem worthwhile.
I trea
sur
e The Elements of S
ty
le for its sharp advice, but I treasure it
eve

n more for the audacity and self-confidence of its
author
. Will knew
where he stood. He was so sure of where he stood, and made his posi-
tion so
clea
r and so plausible, that his
pecu
liar sta
nce
has continued to
invigorate me
-and
, I am sure, thousands of other ex-stude nt
s-
during
the years that have intervened since our first encounter. He had a num-
ber of likes
and
dislikes that w
er
e alm ost as whimsical as the choice of
a necktie, yet he made them
see
m utterl y convincing. He disliked the
word
f orce
ful
and advised us to use fo rcible instead. He felt that the
word

clever was greatly overused: "
It
is best restri cted to ing
enuit
y dis-
pla
yed in small matt
er
s." He despi sed the expression student body,
which he termed gruesome, and made a special trip downtown to the
Alumni News office one day to protest the expression and suggest that
s
uu
lerury be subs tituted
-a
coinage of his own, which he felt was sim-
ilar to
citizenry. [ am told that the News editor was so cha rmed by the
vi
sit
, if not by the word, that he ordered the student body buried, never
to rise again.
Studentry has taken its place. It's not much of an improve-
m
ent
,
but
it does sound less cadaverous, and it made Will Strunk qu ite
happ
y.

Some years ago, when the h
eir
to the throne of England was a child,
I noticed a headline in the
Times about Bonnie Prince Charlie: "C HARLES'
TONSILS om:" Immediately
Rul
e I leapt to mind.
1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding s.Followthis
rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,
xv
I INTR OD UCTION
Charl
es's f
riend
Burns's poem
the wit
ch'
s malice
Clearly, Will Strunk
had
foreseen, as far
ba
ck as
1918
,
the
dangerous
tonsillectomy of a
princ

e, in which
the
surg
eon
removes
the
ton
sils
and
the
Times copy d
esk
removes the final s. He
started
his book with it. I
comm
end
Rul
e 1 to the Times,
and
I trust that
Charles
's throat, not
Charles' throat, is in fine shape today.
Style rules of this sort are, of course, somewhat a
matter
of individ-
ual
pr
ef

erenc
e,
and
even the
established
rules
of
grammar
are
open
to
challe nge.
Prof
essor
Strunk
, although one of the most inflexible
and
choosy of men , was qui ck to acknowl
edg
e the fallacy of inflexibility
and
the
dan
ger
of doctrine. "
It
is an old observation," he wrote, "that the
best
writ
ers

sometimes di
sr
egard the rules of rhetoric.
When
they do so,
however, the r
ead
er will usually find in the sente
nce
some comp
ensat-
ing m
erit
, attained at the cost of the violation. Unl
ess
he is certain of
doing as well, he will
probabl
y do b
est
to follow the rules."
It
is encouraging to
see
how p
erf
ectly a book, even a du sty rul e book,
p
erp
etuat

es
and
extends the spirit of a man. Will
Strunk
loved the
clear
,
the brief, the bold,
and
his book is clear, bri
ef
, bold. Boldness is per-
hap
s its chief distingui
shing
mark. On
pag
e
43,
explaining one of his
parall
els
, he says,
"Th
e lefthand version gives the impression that the
writ
er
is
und
e

cid
ed or timid,
appar
ently
unable
or afraid to choose one
form of expression
and
hold to it." And his original
Rul
e 11 was "Make
definite assertions."
That
was Will all over. He sco
rne
d the vague, the
tame, the colorless, the irresolute. He felt it was worse to be irresolute
than
to be wrong. I rem
emb
er
a day in
clas
s when he l
ean
ed far forward ,
in his characteristic pos
e-the
pose of a man about to impart a s
ecret

-
and
croaked, "
If
you don't know how to
pronoun
ce a word, say it loud!
If
you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud! " Thi s comical
pie
ce of advice struck me as sound at the time ,
and
I still r
esp
ect
it.
Why compound ignorance with
inaudibilit
y? Why
run
and
hide?
All through
The Elements
of
Style one finds evid
enc
es of the
author
's

deep sympathy for the r
eader
. Will felt
that
the
r
ead
er was in serious
trouble most of the time, floundering in a swamp,
and
that
it was the
duty of anyone att
emptin
g to write English to
drain
this swamp
quickl
y
I
NTROD
UC
TI
ON I x vi
and
get the reader up on dry grou nd, or at least to throw a rope. In revis-
ing the text, I hav e tried to hold stead ily in mind this beli
ef"
of"
his, this

con c
ern
for the bewild
er
ed reader.
In the
En
glis h classes o
f"
today, "the litt le book" is surrounde d by
longer, low
er
te
xtb
ooks
-b
ooks with permissive ste
erin
g
and
automatic
transitions. P
erh
aps the book has become something o
f"
a curiosity. To
me, it still see ms to maintain its original poise, standing, in a draft y
time, e
rec
t, resolute, and as

sur
ed . I still find the Strunkian wisdom a
comfort, the Strun
kia
n humor a delight, and the Strunkian allitude
tow
ar
d right
-and
-wrong a bles
sin
g undi sguised .
E. B. W I IITE
v vi i I I NT R O DUCT I O N
THE
ELEMENTS
OF
STYLE
I
Elementary
Rules
of
Usage
1.
Form
the
poss
essive

sin
gular
of
noun
s
by
addin
g
:~.
Follow this ruIe what ev
er
the final consonant . Th us writeo
Charl
es's
[ricnd
Burns
's po
ems
tile witch 's mal ice
Exc
ept
ions
ar
e the possessi ves of ancien t pro
per
names
ending -es
and
-is, I he
poss

essive
[esus
';
and
such forms as.fiJr conscience'
sak
e.
[or
righreousness t
sake
.
But
suc
h [orms as Moses' 'Jaws, Isis' tell/file
arc
C O
Ill
-
monly re pl
ace
d by
the laws or Moses
the
temple of Isis
The
pronomin
al
pos
s
essiv

es hers, its , theirs ,
YO/l
l"S, an d ours have no
apostroph
e. Indefinite
pronouns
, however, use the
apostroph
e to show
posseSSlOn.
one'
s rights
som
ebod
y
else's
umbr
ell a
A
common
error
is to write it
~
~
for its, or vice versa . Th e first is a con-
traction,
mea
ning
"it is."
The

second
is a posses sive.
It's a wise dog that scra tch es its own fleas.
I I