# Is there some single webpage somewhere that takes on Strunk and White? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 15, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434 "2009-01-15T15:30:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/1 "2009-01-15T15:30:59Z")
I googled around for this, and did a specific google search on Language Log as well. I found a lot of scattered tidbits arguing against specific claims in S&W. But what I’m looking for is some single webpage somewhere (or a connected series of them at least) that tries to take on the work as a whole, in one extended argument. Anyone know of some such thing? ---
**Author:** ![KlondikeGeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/2 "2009-01-15T15:47:20Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I googled around for this, and did a specific google search on Language Log as well. I found a lot of scattered tidbits arguing against specific claims in S&W. But what I’m looking for is some single webpage somewhere (or a connected series of them at least) that tries to take on the work as a whole, in one extended argument. > > Anyone know of some such thing? Even if there is, I still swear by that book (not at it). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/3 "2009-01-15T15:48:28Z")
Sorry, but what’s wrong with Strunk and White again? ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/4 "2009-01-15T16:04:01Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I googled around for this, and did a specific google search on Language Log as well. I found a lot of scattered tidbits arguing against specific claims in S&W. But what I’m looking for is some single webpage somewhere (or a connected series of them at least) that tries to take on the work as a whole, in one extended argument. > > Anyone know of some such thing? What in god’s name could this possible be about? You realize the English language has no governing body or Official Rules™, right? The guidelines are actually made by people like Strunk and White, so “proving them wrong” sounds pretty dumb. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/5 "2009-01-15T16:38:51Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > What in god’s name could this possible be about? You realize the English language has no governing body or Official Rules™, right? The guidelines are actually made by people like Strunk and White, so “proving them wrong” sounds pretty dumb. The above is a strange post which attributes a phrase to me which I did not use–nor did I use one that could reasonably be construed as equivalent in meaning–and which first says that there are no official rules or governing bodies concerning English usage, (where nothing in my post could be construed as claiming otherwise,) but then says that there _are_ guidelines in force made by “people like Strunk and White” and that one ought not to argue with them. As for what in god’s name this could possibly be about, I will paraphrase my OP. I have seen here and there arguments to the effect that Strunk and White ought to be ignored, and I was wondering if anyone has brought such arguments together in a single place in some extended form. What in god’s name else could it have possibly been about? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/6 "2009-01-15T20:28:08Z")
The Language Log guys seem to be loudest on the subject. I don’t know how easy it is to search the site and so how much of their writing on S&W is findable, but they have a chapter on it in their book [Far from the Madding Gerund and Other Dispatches from Language Log](http://www.amazon.com/Madding-Gerund-Other-Dispatches-Language/dp/1590280555/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232050086&sr=1-1). As I’ve said in earlier threads, I disagree with just about every word they have to say on the subject so I’m not the one to take this farther. Anyone who argues with “omit unnecessary words” should be taken around outside and put into the air and while they’re there available measures should be taken, like, I suppose here’s an example, take something large enough to hold them, maybe a barrel or something big and round and cylindrical, although I suppose a square or cube box-like thing would work, and then fill it up completely to the top with water, or even better with water filled with other stuff, eels, man, that would be funny, and then you throw them inside and they can’t breath because it’s already filled with water and the other stuff, like the eels and things and stuff, and they’d drown, because they couldn’t breath and their lungs would fill up with water instead of air and that would cause them to stop breathing, and that usually leads to death, although I suppose they might get rescued and someone do CPR, but who would want to put their months on somebody drowned by eels, you know? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/7 "2009-01-15T20:40:50Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Anyone who argues with “omit unnecessary words” should be taken around outside and put into the air and while they’re there available measures should be taken, like, I suppose here’s an example, take something large enough to hold them, maybe a barrel or something big and round and cylindrical, although I suppose a square or cube box-like thing would work, and then fill it up completely to the top with water, or even better with water filled with other stuff, eels, man, that would be funny, and then you throw them inside and they can’t breath because it’s already filled with water and the other stuff, like the eels and things and stuff, and they’d drown, because they couldn’t breath and their lungs would fill up with water instead of air and that would cause them to stop breathing, and that usually leads to death, although I suppose they might get rescued and someone do CPR, but who would want to put their months on somebody drowned by eels, you know? Yup. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/8 "2009-01-15T20:43:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The Language Log guys seem to be loudest on the subject. I don’t know how easy it is to search the site and so how much of their writing on S&W is findable, but they have a chapter on it in their book [Far from the Madding Gerund and Other Dispatches from Language Log](http://www.amazon.com/Madding-Gerund-Other-Dispatches-Language/dp/1590280555/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232050086&sr=1-1). > > As I’ve said in earlier threads, I disagree with just about every word they have to say on the subject so I’m not the one to take this farther. Anyone who argues with “omit unnecessary words” should be taken around outside and put into the air and while they’re there available measures should be taken, like, I suppose here’s an example, take something large enough to hold them, maybe a barrel or something big and round and cylindrical, although I suppose a square or cube box-like thing would work, and then fill it up completely to the top with water, or even better with water filled with other stuff, eels, man, that would be funny, and then you throw them inside and they can’t breath because it’s already filled with water and the other stuff, like the eels and things and stuff, and they’d drown, because they couldn’t breath and their lungs would fill up with water instead of air and that would cause them to stop breathing, and that usually leads to death, although I suppose they might get rescued and someone do CPR, but who would want to put their months on somebody drowned by eels, you know? I didn’t know you were Sampiro’s sock 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/9 "2009-01-15T21:21:41Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Anyone who argues with “omit unnecessary words” should be taken around outside… By your subsequent jokingly wordy prose, I take it that by saying they “argue with” the rule, you mean that in the sense of arguing _against_ the rule. But their objection is just that it is vaccuously _true_. They think its uninformative, but they don’t think it’s false. So they aren’t arguing against it. ETA Sorry, forgot to thanks you for pointing me to the chapter in the book! ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/10 "2009-01-15T21:45:05Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > As I’ve said in earlier threads, I disagree with just about every word they have to say on the subject so I’m not the one to take this farther. Anyone who argues with “omit unnecessary words” should be taken around outside and put into the air and while they’re there available measures should be taken, like, I suppose here’s an example, take something large enough to hold them, maybe a barrel or something big and round and cylindrical, although I suppose a square or cube box-like thing would work, and then fill it up completely to the top with water, or even better with water filled with other stuff, eels, man, that would be funny, and then you throw them inside and they can’t breath because it’s already filled with water and the other stuff, like the eels and things and stuff, and they’d drown, because they couldn’t breath and their lungs would fill up with water instead of air and that would cause them to stop breathing, and that usually leads to death, although I suppose they might get rescued and someone do CPR, but who would want to put their months on somebody drowned by eels, you know? This proves only that it’s possible to write poorly in a manner that uses many words, most of which are in some sense unnecessary. It does not follow that “omit unnecessary words” is useful advice, any more than it follows that “Don’t write poorly” or “Don’t talk about eels” is useful advice. (I would argue with “omit unnecessary words” in more detail, but **Frylock** gave the gist of what I would say (or at least half of it), plus it’s not relevant to the current GQ.) ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/11 "2009-01-15T21:48:19Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The Language Log guys seem to be loudest on the subject. I don’t know how easy it is to search the site and so how much of their writing on S&W is findable, but they have a chapter on it in their book [Far from the Madding Gerund and Other Dispatches from Language Log](http://www.amazon.com/Madding-Gerund-Other-Dispatches-Language/dp/1590280555/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232050086&sr=1-1). > > As I’ve said in earlier threads, I disagree with just about every word they have to say on the subject so I’m not the one to take this farther. Anyone who argues with “omit unnecessary words” should be taken around outside and put into the air and while they’re there available measures should be taken, like, I suppose here’s an example, take something large enough to hold them, maybe a barrel or something big and round and cylindrical, although I suppose a square or cube box-like thing would work, and then fill it up completely to the top with water, or even better with water filled with other stuff, eels, man, that would be funny, and then you throw them inside and they can’t breath because it’s already filled with water and the other stuff, like the eels and things and stuff, and they’d drown, because they couldn’t breath and their lungs would fill up with water instead of air and that would cause them to stop breathing, and that usually leads to death, although I suppose they might get rescued and someone do CPR, but who would want to put their months on somebody drowned by eels, you know? Nice work. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/12 "2009-01-15T23:16:34Z")
I notice there are multiple versions of Strunk & White’s work available on Amazon. Their sales ranks are: 879 1133 2273 2763 The sales rank for _Far From the Madding Gerund_ is 460,789 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/13 "2009-01-16T02:22:05Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > This proves only that it’s possible to write poorly in a manner that uses many words, most of which are in some sense unnecessary. It does not follow that “omit unnecessary words” is useful advice, any more than it follows that “Don’t write poorly” or “Don’t talk about eels” is useful advice. > > (I would argue with “omit unnecessary words” in more detail, but **Frylock** gave the gist of what I would say (or at least half of it), plus it’s not relevant to the current GQ.) We’ve had this argument before and I’m puzzled that it doesn’t come up in search from any combination of language log and Strunk & White. My position is pretty simple. In the real world, S&W gives good advice that the vast majority of average writers desperately need. Can you get too simple? Probably not. “Use capitals at the beginning of sentences” would seem to be unnecessarily simple advice, yet dozens of Dopers need to hear this. “Omit unnecessary words” may seem to you to be unnecessary in and of itself, but I absolutely guarantee that most people need to hear it. If you want to be technically, pedantically formal S&W may not be the guide for you. But unless you’re advanced enough to argue with S&W you need S&W. It’s short enough to read and heed, which places it above most of the competition right there. And that’s why I don’t know of anybody who has comprehensively critiqued it. Who in the world would such an exercise be for? ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/14 "2009-01-16T02:25:14Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > We’ve had this argument before and I’m puzzled that it doesn’t come up in search from any combination of language log and Strunk & White. I too could have sworn I remembered some relatively recent thread on the topic involving me, you, and the then **Kendall Jackson** (now **Hellestal** ), but I can’t find it in search either. Might it have been during Amnesia Weekend (or whatever that brief period was called)? I don’t think so, but my utter inability to find it suggests perhaps otherwise. (Though I’ve had other experiences like this… posts for which I can remember who posted them and specific details about the words within them, yet which I can’t dredge up on search) ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/15 "2009-01-16T02:54:40Z")
I suppose calling “Amnesia Weekend” relatively recent is stretching things a bit… My SDMB memory is all compressed. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/16 "2009-01-16T03:01:12Z")
**Kendall** ’s now **Hellestal**? I never get the memos. I’m 95% sure the discussion you’re referring to above occurred during Amnesia Weekend. I was involved in that one as well. I’m with **Exapno** on this one, for the reasons he has stated, even though I almost always fall on the descriptivist side of language debates on the Dope. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/17 "2009-01-16T03:05:29Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > I notice there are multiple versions of Strunk & White’s work available on Amazon. Their sales ranks are: > > 879 > 1133 > 2273 > 2763 > > The sales rank for _Far From the Madding Gerund_ is 460,789 And _The Secret_ outsells all that crap. As for ‘Omit’ (what S&W would have called the rule had they been self-consistent), [here is a Language Log post advancing an argument against it](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000994.html): > [@](#): > > I talked recently with an undergraduate who told me something about her grammar instruction in the Los Angeles public schools. And in addition to the usual nonsense about not ending sentences with prepositions and never using “contractions” and things of that sort, she told me a new one. She was told that sentences like the one you are now reading are ungrammatical. > > [snip] > > What my undergraduate student’s high school English teacher insisted on was that you should look at any sentence containing the subordinator that and see whether omitting it would leave the sentence still grammatical. If so, then you must omit it, this teacher said. She would grade you down if you ever used that where grammar did not absolutely require it. The rule is stated so baldly it is taken for an absolute, so this is what you end up with. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/18 "2009-01-16T03:06:05Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > I suppose calling “Amnesia Weekend” relatively recent is stretching things a bit… My SDMB memory is all compressed. Wasn’t that around the end of August? Like August 30 or something? Or perhaps I’m conflating this with another event. I seem to remember this discussion (on Strunk & White) taking place at about the same time John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate, or maybe the weekend before. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/19 "2009-01-16T03:09:11Z")
Amnesia Weekend was indeed at the end of August, so I shall trust your memory. Also, **Hellestal** was on your side as well. I was all on my lonesome, alas. Well, perhaps someone will find just such a site as will swing **Frylock** around to my perspective… ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434/20 "2009-01-16T03:18:09Z")
[Here is another, perhaps more balanced take on the issue](http://conjugatevisits.blogspot.com/2008/09/grammatical-analysis-of-strunk-and.html): > [@](#): > > I’ve been thinking about the grammar behind the shift of meaning that occurred when E.B. White took William Strunk Jr.’s classroom guide and marketed it to the masses. > > It has to do with the grammar of imperative sentences, that is, commands. > > An important difference between an imperative sentence and a declarative sentence is that in the declarative the subject of verb is explicit: “I have a Coke and a smile,” “He has a Coke and a smile,” “Mike has a Coke and a smile.” But when we put the verb into command form, the subject becomes implicit. Yet it’s still there. It’s “you.” > > [snip] > > Strunk’s original Elements of Style was full of imperatives — imperatives that were preserved in White’s version. “Omit unnecessary words” may be the most famous example, but much of the book is written in the imperative. In those sentences, the Strunk’s subject was “you,” by which he meant “you students.” > > But after Strunk died, when White and a profit-savvy publisher marketed this book to the masses, they quite literally changed the subject of the verbs — even those in the sentences they left unchanged. “You students” was invisibly changed to “you everybody.” > > [snip] > > White meant no harm. On the contrary, his motives were likely pure. He believed his late teacher’s wisdom could help the masses. And it has. But it has also hurt because people don’t realize that the imperatives in the book aren’t universal. **So people run around believing Strunk’s imperatives on how to form possessives [and other issues of style], even though those imperatives are his alone and the “Chicago Manual” and other style guides disagree.** [This post goes on a more point-by-point basis, but is still quite short.](http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=node/38) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-some-single-webpage-somewhere-that-takes-on-strunk-and-white/481434.md?page=2)