Geoffrey Pullum continues his critique of Strunk & White [audio]

npr.org

7 points·gruseom··4 comments

I think what was lost in the discussion in the last thread about Pullum is that he really chose his words with care, and was careful to criticize Strunk and White as GRAMMAR advice--because Pullum is a grammarian, and Strunk and White are perhaps prose writers, but not scholars of grammar.

Meanwhile I thought that most readers of English could learn a lot about good writing by reading George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language,"

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

which deals with more important issues than Strunk and White anyway, and is very thought-provoking.

Yes, Pullum's harsh criticism of the grammar advice is combined with lukewarm approval of the style advice and full-on praise for White himself as a writer. That's too complicated - it's not how emotional associations work.

Incidentally, I don't know what "blogs" Pullum is referring to in the interview, but pretty much every point he mentions came up in the HN thread. Perhaps he's been lurking!

I haven't heard the interview, but Pullum is a regular on Language Log; one recent post is a direct reply to the comments posted on fark.com: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1319

"I've been an American citizen longer than you've been alive"

Funny. Thanks for posting that link. Pullum is a good writer. One of the other ripostes is much funnier, and fits Fark well. I'm glad to see Pullum recommended Style: Toward Clarity and Grace as a style guide. That is a good book.

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