Talk:The Elements of Style

message: I changed "the nebbish Strunk" to "Strunk". My dictionary here says that a nebbish is a weak-willed and timid person. Even if this were true, I don't think it's the place of the Wikipedia to editorialize like that. - Dominus 15:48, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Not an editorial: White describes Strunk as "nebbish" in various editions of the little book. --Robertkeller 22:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Strunk is only mentioned in the introduction. The word does not appear in the introduction to the 3rd (1979) edition (the last one White edited). The copyright page states that the introduction in the 1959, 1972, and 1979 editions was originally written by White for the 1957 New Yorker article. In which edition do you find it? --Blainster 21:40, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My mistake. He used the word "nibbling" which my memory mistakedly recalled many years later as "nebbish". Omit the needless word. --Robertkeller 16:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nebbish

message: Evidently by the time of White's 1979 introduction to EOS his memory had gotten a little rusty. In it he states there were seven usage rules and eleven composition principles in the original version, but both online versions of the 1918 book show eight usage rules and ten principles. Or perhaps he only had Strunks 1935 version available (which I don't), accounting for the difference. --Blainster 09:52, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Number of rules

message: #White was commisioned by MacMillan in 1957 shortly after his New Yorker article, not in 1959. The revised edition was published in 1959. 
#The cover on my copy of the fourth edition clearly states that the ten million cumulative sales occurred throught the first three editions, and does not include the fourth edition. --Blainster 20:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Commissioning date and copies sold

message: Ironically, this article does not follow the guidelines of the book itself. (For example, the book instructs that punctuation marks following words within quotation marks should fall before the end quotation mark. The book also warns against overuse of the passive voice; this article is currently guilty of that mistake.) I am revising the article to conform with the book's admirable and proper advice. OlYeller 21:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it is ironic, but this article should follow the Wikipedia Style Manual, since this is a Wikipedia article about Strunk and White (which I admire too--at least up through the third edition). Jonathunder 01:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Your examples above do correctly show Wikipedia house style. On WP, quote marks enclose a literal string of text from a source. A mark of punctuation goes inside the quote only if it was part of the exact text being quoted. Since this is different from how I was taught, it took some getting used to, but after a while it seems logical. Indeed, this practice is often called the "logical style". (Note how the dot goes outside the quote there.) Jonathunder 16:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article style

message: Let's leave it out altogether, then. It's an opinion. --VKokielov 05:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If it tells someone how to speak or write correctly, it's prescriptivist. It's a neutral descriptor. Slac speak up! 05:47, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You say it's neutral. I say it isn't. It's pejorative. You know as well as I do that "prescriptivist" is the normal state of affairs, and has been for many centuries, while "descriptivist" is a brilliant twentieth-century American invention. Are you feelin rite tonite, man? --VKokielov 17:25, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text:  Mind, I'm talking about Western culture here. The Americans are the first who took up formalizing all sorts of things like that. To read that the "prescriptivist authors" of a book call our bluff is like reading that the "rightist" Republicans want to ban abortion. Judge for yourself. --VKokielov 17:30, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I didn't say you were American, by the way. But Queen's English is a standard, and the English still care about their language. They care about it more than we Americans do. --VKokielov 17:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: In general, "-ist" is an English suffix with a slightly pejorative meaning when it is derived from words which describe famous factions of various sorts (from relativism to communism). In particular, "prescriptivist" is a label for "old-school" linguistics, and I hear in it an insult to old-school linguists. Again, even if we can say with a clear conscience that "a Republican is rightist," can we really say, with as clear a conscience, that "the rightist Republicans fight against abortion"? We're attributing something to the Republicans now -- to be precise, we're attributing to them a liability, and showing our disdain for rightists, Republicans, and the ban on abortions. --VKokielov 18:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: So perhaps "-ist" isn't to all of us as offensive as it is to me. But its combination with attributions must be, because my first association with a faction like this is "deep-seated belief". --VKokielov 18:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To be honest, I find all of this quite difficult to follow. I'm not sure what the Republican Party's attitude to abortion has to do with the neutrality of the term "prescriptivist". If the term is such an insult to prescriptivist grammarians (and I find it very hard, in the absence of any cites, to see why: which one of them would disagree that "prescribing forms of speech" is what they do?), what other term do they use to accurately describe their methodological approach? And, dare I say it, prescriptivist grammarians do have a "deep-seated belief" that some forms of language are better than others. That's what defines them as a group. How can this be contested? Slac speak up! 01:53, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

text: First of all, since when is that term in use? Second of all, did Strunk and White ever say they were prescriptivists? Show me where. Now, I'm not trying to catch you. I'm trying to say that I don't believe it. And, if they didn't call themselves prescriptivists, and it is their book, then why should we call them prescriptivists right before attributing to them what we (all of us, prescriptivists, descriptivists, and bar flies) hated most about our high school English teachers? --VKokielov 02:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

text:  I'll leave your text up, but will you quid pro quo write up a Request for Comment? I'd like to know what the masses think. --VKokielov 02:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I see I'm not the first to start this fight up. Your move. Will you put up a request for comment, or shall I? --VKokielov 02:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "prescriptivist" 

message: All I have to add on the word "prescriptivist", and to clarify my analogy, is that it doesn't belong in the introductory paragraph, and points a finger where it shouldn't. Again, it's no better than calling Bill Clinton an "abortionist" or Bush a "lassez-fairist". --VKokielov 18:17, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (Reaction to RfC:) I would agree that the position in the phrase "its prescriptivist authors" is not optimal. But some other place in the intro, I think, would be appropriate. The concept is extremely relevant as a characterisation of what the book is, but not so much as a characterisation of what its authors are. Some sentence like: "The book is one of the most well-known and influential prescriptivist popular treatments of English grammar and usage in the US." - By the way, there doesn't seem to be a section on "criticism", right? I don't know if "Language Log" counts as a "reliable source", but it sure makes for a fun reading when it comes to Strunk-and-White-bashing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What I don't understand is how we, weasels as we are, can bring ourselves to bash Strunk and White, when Strunk was a professor and White was a writer. I'm not a rightist or leftist ;), in the sense that I respect tradition neither for tradition nor common sense, but out of respect and the knowledge that "sense" isn't always common. (This is how most people are, but the poles, as usual, have been making themselves known much more than the middle.) --VKokielov 22:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Concur. The whole issue of Descriptivist vs Prescriptivist is an issue of linguistics, not an issue of style and grammar. The point of style guides is to indicate usages which allow for 'inter'communication and cut down on misunderstanding. to call that prescriptivism, while 'technically' accurate from a linguisitc point of view, is shortsighted and insulting to those of us who strive to teach people to be able to understand each other. There seems to be a train of thought out here that anyone who sets down 'any' rule of grammar is a prescriptivist and we should all be left to our own devices - once the phrase is uttered, it is acceptable. That is how Babel is made; yes, linguists need to stick to description rather than prescription - but somebody needs to establish style and usage parameters. It is only when those parameters are un-moving (e.g. insisting on Victorian usage as 'proper' English) that the slur has any place. While prescriptive/descriptive thus has a place in that article and articles abbout grammar disputes, it has no place here.Bridesmill 22:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know if you meant to "concur" with VKokielov or with me here. Just one nitpicking point: I can't follow you on "an issue of linguistics, not an issue of style and grammar". Grammar is the domain of linguistics. (Style too, though not quite as centrally.) If Strunk/White tell us you can't write "three people" because you also can't write "one people", they are making a claim about grammar, hence they are doing linguistics. As long as Strunk/White do grammar, they have to be evaluated by standards set by that discipline. And even where it's concerned only with style preferences and not grammar, yes, that too can be done either in a prescriptive or a descriptive way, so the adjective is still pertinent. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:18, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

text: By the way, as an afterthought: I see above that VKokielov was concerned about the negative connotations of the "-ist" suffix. When dealing with a characterisation of the approach, we can easily replace "prescriptivist" with "prescriptive". "Prescriptive grammar" is just the accurate and neutral disambiguated name of the field to which this work belongs. Nothing to do with the legitimacy of the field as such. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Hm, sorry but I have the feeling your response sounds as if you hadn't really read my last paragraph above at all? What you call "grammarians who develop usage guidelines" - that simply is the meaning of "prescriptive grammar". What's wrong with calling it that? "Prescriptive grammar" is an entirely non-judgmental term. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe you thinks so, but the term has been used in a derogatory sense; I find it derogatory when used to refer to grammarians, I find it derogatory when it is applied to me, and so do others. This is like the 'n' word - not everybody considers it derogatory, and sometimes it isn't. But we still avoid it because it is too easily taken the wrong way. So if it doesn't need to be used, why use it unless the intent is to send a message? On the other hand, the intro as it stands right now works for me - prescriptive is a good descriptor in this sense - prescriptivist Isn't.Bridesmill 16:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I guess we can agree on that. You're right that the way the "-ist" was used in the earlier version did sound as if it wanted to "send that message". - We could still do with a "criticism" section maybe, further down in the article of course. The criticism I've seen is not so much against the book being prescriptivist as such, but against it being bad prescriptions. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Read Geoff Pullum, grandmaster of Strunk-and-White-bashing.. :-) Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have, IMHO he's the other end of the pendulum swing LOL. Guys like that make me pull my hair out, because every 'anti-prescriptivist' in the book loves to quote him out of context.Bridesmill 19:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you. --VKokielov 20:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If everyone is happy with the intro now, shall we say the dispute is solved, and de-list the RfC? Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That would have my vote - would also make this article a good example of everyone working together for a better tomorrow 
.Bridesmill 17:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dispute 

message: 16. Eschew obfuscation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.125.144.16 (talk) 13:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Favorite Reminder 

message: I see that previous discussion has attempted to deal with Pullum-esque criticism of Struck & White.  I find it odd that there is no  "criticism" section at all in the current article.  (I don't count "See also Prescription and description".)   Whatever about avoiding prejudicial labels in the introduction, I think the critics deserve some mention. Even if they are few and far between, that itself is worth mentioning.  
I'm not American, and I'm not sure what "required reading in composition classes" means.  Does "required reading" mean just that, or does it imply that the advice must not only be read but also be followed?   Is "composition class" something that all students take, with a view to writing term papers and the like, or is it restricted to students of journalism or other writing-focussed disciplines?    
I found Pullum's hatchet-jobs amusing, but I haven't read Strunk & White.  It seems to me, from perusing the languagelog postings which allude to S&W, that Pullum's beef is that Strunk & White's attempts to provide specific technical advice are simplistic; that they themselves break their own rules; and that officious schoolmarms and subeditors, and writers insecure of their own technique, may blindly follow the crude rules to an extent which contradicts any natural linguistic instincts, and which Strunk and White themselves would never have done or intended others to do.  In other words, S&W encourage hypercorrection. 
It's interesting that Fowler seems to get less flak at languagelog; this may be because it's less (directly) influential in the U.S., or it may be that those aspects of S&W which stick in their craw are not dealt with in Fowler, or that Fowler is less dogmatic in his judgments.  jnestorius(talk) 18:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism and context 

message: Is the extensive quoting of Strunk & White's rules, and the links to .ru sites with copies of the book in seeming copyright violation, appropriate? Kasyapa (talk) 00:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What is a .ru site? As for the extensive quoting of the rules, most of it has been removed now.  --Unixguy (talk) 16:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fair Use / Links 

message: Surely this article should be written using American English? DMorpheus (talk) 18:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  American English?

message: Hi, I found this dispute on WP:3O.  User:Rjanag is correct.  While one can plainly see that some people disagree with the criticism, it would violate Wikipedia's policy on original research to say that a controversy exists, unless a reliable source has already stated it.  Wikipedia generally disallows using blogs as sources, so this information should not be added unless someone can find a reliable, third-party source (i.e. a news article or a published academic paper) for the information. Mildly MadTC 23:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Third Opinion

message: There is fair section on criticism.  
For balance, there should be a section about the influence of Strunk and White. 
There should also be section on the appreciations of Strunk and White expressed by many writers and editors --- to balance the section on criticism. One reference would be this article 
*
which has been reprinted in 
*
I don't have page numbers. 
It might be useful to find an article discussing S&W in popular culture, to use as a reference for a section on such popular references (which exist at the end of many Wikipedia articles). Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 10:31, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You are welcome to add stuff like that, but please do so in a way that makes sense. The bit you added about influence is unsourced, and the bit that is sourced (about S&W being influenced by puritan ideas) is not exactly praise or criticism, and as such is pretty irrelevant to the section you put it in. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It pays to enrich your word power: "Criticism" includes placing a text in its context. Lang suggests that the Elements of Style reflects speech patterns of (New England) puritanism;  c.f., the "true eloquence" of John Bunyan or John Milton. Your phrases "makes sense" and "pretty irrelevant" were uncharitable. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 17:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I remember reading Leslie Lamport in The LaTeX Handbook that "it is a delightful book." (But I don't have the page/chapter number.) N6n (talk) 18:03, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influence and Appreciation (balancing "criticism" section) 

message: Any comments on their 'prescription' for quotation mark placement?  Despite my earlier schooling, I have come to dislike the idea of putting quotation marks after commas in places like the introduction of this article:
:usage," ten 
it looks like it opens the phrase commencing with ten as much as it might be interpreted as closing the phrase ending with usage.  Of course, with 'real' quotation marks (rather than 'tick marks') there is an extra clue, but that's not the point. 
—DIV (138.194.11.244 (talk) 08:13, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotation marks 

message: The top of this article needs serious formatting assistance.fdsTalk 20:53, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing this out. The problem wasn't in the article, but in a change someone made to , which is transcluded near the top of this article. I have undone the change. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:23, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Top

message: "In 2011, Time magazine ... one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923". But the book was published in 1918. What have I missed? Nonnb (talk) 15:13, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume they were referring to the revised version, published in the 1950s. If you check the source they even say that. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:07, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Time Magazine Date Causality?

message: The present text states «The fourth edition of The Elements of Style (2000), published fifty-four years after the death of William Strunk Jr., omits his stylistic advice about masculine pronouns: "unless the antecedent is or must be feminine";[7] and, in its place, editor E.B. White reports:». But White had already been dead for 15 years, so I don't think it was him who changed the text. Could someone please check it? --.mau.  ✉ 18:55, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  anachronism 

message: The article tells us that 
:Pullum has claimed, for example, that [blah blah].
I believe it's fair to say that he has demonstrated that [blah blah]. Is there any informed, credible claim that no, he has got it wrong? -- Hoary (talk) 08:34, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Since nobody has objected in a period of about two weeks, I've made the change. -- Hoary (talk) 06:44, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Pullum's claim

message: The original Elements of Style is in the public domain and thus open to mash-ups or whatever. It hadn't occurred to me until today that anyone would have thought of doing something worthwhile with this curio, but today I realized that the computer scientist John Cowan had done just that. Clearly a man with his head screwed on the right way, Cowan has here adapted it for the real world this century, removing Strunk's fantasies and squaring it with the English of people who write good English.
Does Cowan's reworking merit a mention or a link? Admittedly, it seems to have been little noticed (I'm not suggesting that a paragraph should be devoted to it); yet it seems more significant than many accretions to many other carefully tended articles, and it's free of charge and potentially useful. (To me, it seems hugely superior to "Strunk & White", quite aside from its more attractive price.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:34, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Since nobody has objected in a period of about two weeks, I've added links to Strunk & Cowan and made related changes. -- Hoary (talk) 06:44, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

text: SpikeToronto doesn't approve. If anyone would like to see it, here it now is. -- Hoary (talk) 12:21, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: A worthwhile version of ''The Elements of Style''

message: the answer that the listed question was used as final Jeopardy was something like:
 
  this volume, now in it's 4th edition  was first published in 1918 
  as a 48 page guide for Cornell English students 
but due to not taking a screen shot i cannot be positive that that is exact... i am hoping that an east coast 7pm or 7:30pm version or even an afternoon pacific coast airing can be checked by another editor
--Qazwiz (talk) 21:42, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed the item, as mere trivia. All it seems to say about our subject matter here is that the makers of a TV show thought that some but not all contestants would be able to think of it. If I misunderstand and this is not mere trivia, perhaps it could be more informatively presented and differently titled; but first, I (and I suspect other editors too) would like to see an argument for its value. -- Hoary (talk) 03:44, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  the trivia section Jeopardy question? 

message: There's been a minor disagreement between one editor and another. Let me quote our manual of style on the matter: 
* Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules, even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official", as long as this is a style already in widespread use, rather than inventing a new one:
** avoid: , , 
** instead, use: , , 
* Using all caps is preferred if the letters are pronounced individually, even if they don't stand for anything.  For instance, use  for the (U.S.) standardized test or  for the fast food restaurant. Using all lowercase letters may likewise be acceptable if it is done universally by sources, such as with .
-- Hoary (talk) 03:42, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: From Time to TIME

message: This article has what, I, intuitively feel, is way to many commas for modern written English. There's the parenthetical usage — my preference is for em-dashes — of commas introducing unneeded breaks. There's the NYTimes commas. And there's just, if I may say, too many, er… writerly, commas, giving an archaic, and interrupted, voice to the prose. For example the second sentence:  
* The original was composed by William Strunk Jr., in 1918, and published by Harcourt, in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage", ten "elementary principles of composition", "a few matters of form", a list of 49 "words and expressions commonly misused", and a list of 57 "words often misspelled".
"in 1918" does not require commas, it was published then that is not parenthetical to the preceding words "The original was composed by William Struck Jr" 
", and published by Harcourt," really? commas come after "and"?
Where can I read about usage of commas for Wikipedia style and more generally in written English?
WideEyedPupil (talk) 08:16, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of Comma 

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thread_title:  External links modified