Customer Reviews
The Best Little Book About English - By: Brandon Simpson, 17 Jan 2008 
This little book is considered classic & timeless by many professors & students. I find it very helpful. It inspired me to write my own book about English.
Brandon Simpson
An important little book... - By: B. D. Wilson, 28 Nov 2007 "The Elements of Style" was recommended to me by Stephen King in his book "On Writing". I see it as basicallly filling in the gaps that King left in his book. King's book was more concerned with the practical matters of writing, whereas, TEOS is alll about LANGUAGE & how to use it, which King only touched upon.
And this book certainly packs a lot of information & advice, especiallly given that it is only 85 pages long. It has five chapters. The first chapter is callled ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE & contains eleven grammatical tips, from the use of commas & semi-colons to structuring of a sentence. The second chapter, ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION, is more about writing style & ways to keep your writing punchy & fresh. Chapter 3, A FEW MATTERS OF FORM, mostly concerns physical presentation of your work & may be more suitable to formal letter writing that fiction, but may be useful to other forms nonetheless. Chapter 4 is about WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS COMMONLY MISUSED & includes some of my pet hates, including those who turn "I couldn't care less" into "I could care less", thus completely destroying the meaning of the phrase. I also learned a few new things from this section. The fifth chapter is callled AN APPROACH TO STYLE & contains 21 general tips, or "reminders", about how to keep your writing consistent & stop it going bad. A lot of my description here sounds very general & vague, & makes most of the sections sound the same, but trust me that it alll makes sense & has a point in the book that I just can't quite explain - I need a bigger vocab!
There are one or two minor problems with the book. For example, as Stephen King points out, it says that the most important part of a sentence should always go at the end - but is "With a hammer he killed Frank" reallly better than "He killed Frank with a hammer"? I don't think so, either. Also, it seems to me that a lot of this advice, particular when it comes to grammar, depends on your own comforts & preferences & those of your editor and/or publisher. That doesn't mean we should pay it no heed, but I do believe that you can quite easily get away with ignoring half of this book's advice & still be a respected, published writer.
But overalll, an excellent little book that I think every writer should read, whether they are beginners or highly experienced. The writing style of Strunk himself is straightforward & formal, occasionallly venturing into humour & informality, which means that you are likely to learn something by reading it, but unlikely to be bored while doing so.
Highly recommended to writers of alll talents.
Must have for all writers...informative and very readable - By: Ms. C. A. Lever, 13 Sep 2007 Superb book. Teaches (or reminds) you of grammatical devices & the rules of language, which may sound dull but it's actuallly very readable & dare I say it- fun. An ideal present to anyone studying english, or any aspiring writer...or you could treat yourself, you will be glad you did.
Good for read - By: Boz, 25 Jul 2007 This book taught me write how to do it good & clarity.
Recommends itself.
Sophisticated, useful and entirely unpatronising. Must own. - By: Mr. James D. G. Miles, 04 May 2007 It is very easy to think that because one knows the difference between "they're", "their" & "there" that one knows everything there is to know about writing & to think any book such as Elements of Style would be a patronising & didactic tome of condescension. Not at alll! Elements of Style is a sophisticated & complete style guide for writing correct English which not only corrects common mistakes but clearly explains the reasons behind certain choices in a way that helps you better understand language. More than anything, it's just a very handy book to have by your side when writing anything of importance, to refer to for grammar & word use queries & edit writing into a more fluid & readable form. It's worth reading the whole way through at least twice, but more than anything it's a valuable reference book.
The core of the book (the main four chapters, by Strunk) are alll you reallly need. I found E.B. White's appended fifth chapter to be a bit too subjective & strayed from the completely rigorous & surgicallly precise tone set by Strunk in the first four chapters. That would be my only criticism of the book, that smalll as it is, it could have been shorter, were certain bits of woffle (multiple introductions, White's supplementary chapter) cut from it.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough though. Not only will you feel like a smarter writer having read it but you will actuallly be one. It's very funny too, in a dead-pan, almost sarcastic, sardonic fashion - of course, without ever talking down to the reader or insulting her intelligence.
