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E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

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Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#11

Post by content_sesh »

munchbunny wrote: post #8
devindotcom wrote: post #3

It seems clear that White (though Strunk seems to have been rather more serious about it) intended his usage guidance to be just that - guidance. Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken.

Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken. I think this is a key point. In my favorite writing course in college, the professor chose to teach composition from the perspective of legal argumentation. We wrote 4-8 pages per week in the most economical and intentional way possible, poring over every word, every sentence, and every paragraph t…

I've found following Strunk's "make every word count" dictum causes me to take much more time when composing. So 4-8 pages per week sounds like it would take an awful lot of time indeed

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#12

Post by Veen »

worker767424 wrote: post #4

My mind was slightly blown when I realized "Charlotte's Web" was halfway written (I guess he revised it and added a chapter) by the same guy as "The Elements of Style." There are incredibly few authors that you read multiple books from in a K-12 education, and I'd never put that one together because a style guide is so different from a children's book.

You have that backwards. White wrote all of "Charlotte's Web" and much of "Elements of Style".

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#13

Post by munchbunny »

content_sesh wrote: post #11
munchbunny wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken. I think this is a key point. In my favorite writing course in college, the professor chose to teach composition from the perspective of legal argumentation. We wrote 4-8 pages per week in the most economical and intentional way possible, poring over every word, every sentence, and every paragraph t…

I've found following Strunk's "make every word count" dictum causes me to take much more time when composing. So 4-8 pages per week sounds like it would take an awful lot of time indeed

It absolutely did, but it was focused practice, so it gave you back what you put into it. I got better over time, so by the end of the class I was much faster at the process of putting the words down and then making multiple passes to clean it up.

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#14

Post by mwcremer »

content_sesh wrote: post #11
munchbunny wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken. I think this is a key point. In my favorite writing course in college, the professor chose to teach composition from the perspective of legal argumentation. We wrote 4-8 pages per week in the most economical and intentional way possible, poring over every word, every sentence, and every paragraph t…

I've found following Strunk's "make every word count" dictum causes me to take much more time when composing. So 4-8 pages per week sounds like it would take an awful lot of time indeed

Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. --B.Pascal

(I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.)

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#15

Post by devindotcom »

davidivadavid wrote: post #9
devindotcom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed they are, as is much of the Western canon. They are the products of a period and locale in which white supremacy was more or less unquestioned by a large proportion of the English-speaking population. "The Elements of Style" is still useful and interesting, but its limitations and origins must be acknowledged. Among them is that it is a collection of usage patterns chiefly used by and intended for a specific c…

The vast majority of the Western canon isn't even written in English.

You're quite right, I should have written something along the lines of "conventionally important works in English" or the like. Of course the western canon is much more diverse.

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#16

Post by klodolph »

Alex3917 wrote: post #7
klodolph wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see any reference to “white supremacy” in that link. > Instead of requiring that comments be written in Strunk & White Standard English, require instead that English-language comments be clear and easily understandable by other English speakers. This accomplishes the same goal without alienating or putting up barriers for people (especially people of color) whose native dialect of English is not Standard Engl…

> I don’t see any reference to "white supremacy" in that link. It's a reference to these threads on the Python-dev mailing list: https://www.prettyfwd.com/t/bvCo9Zp3SMeuyZy7qynl0Q/ https://www.prettyfwd.com/t/Ci1fgOGUQHa7znO03M3apQ/

I think it’s fine and good that people hash these things out in the mailing list. I see no point in digging through mailing lists and making attributions to “Python Developers” as a whole, based on something at the very least they decided they wanted to remove from commit messages.

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#17

Post by Veen »

devindotcom wrote: post #6
marklanders wrote: post #2

Sadly, in Python Strunk & White are now viewed as "relics of white supremacy": https://github.com/python/peps/pull/1470

Indeed they are, as is much of the Western canon. They are the products of a period and locale in which white supremacy was more or less unquestioned by a large proportion of the English-speaking population. "The Elements of Style" is still useful and interesting, but its limitations and origins must be acknowledged. Among them is that it is a collection of usage patterns chiefly used by and intended for a specific c…

> They are the products of a period and locale in which white supremacy was more or less unquestioned by a large proportion of the English-speaking population.

By that standard, James Baldwin's writing is a relic of white supremacy and homophobia because he wrote when both were more or less unquestioned.

Or, by a more sensible standard, you have carelessly besmirched a writer's reputation by associating him with white supremacy via a vague claim about historical attitudes and no reference to his beliefs or the content of his work.

As a strategy, I suppose it has the benefit of not requiring much thought or evidence.

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#18

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

content_sesh wrote: post #11
munchbunny wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken. I think this is a key point. In my favorite writing course in college, the professor chose to teach composition from the perspective of legal argumentation. We wrote 4-8 pages per week in the most economical and intentional way possible, poring over every word, every sentence, and every paragraph t…

I've found following Strunk's "make every word count" dictum causes me to take much more time when composing. So 4-8 pages per week sounds like it would take an awful lot of time indeed

It's something I aspire to[0] and as elsewhere pointed out, it takes extra time. As your expected audience grows, the value of your time invested grows because it benefits proportionately more people.

I've learned to explain in terms almost stupidly simple because another's interpretation can be so extraordinarily far from your intent you wonder how they even got there. Then they explain how it reads to them, and inside you groan a little because yes, it could be seen to mean that and you had no idea. One needs to user test one's writings just as much as one's software, I've discovered.

[0] WIP

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#19

Post by njarboe »

mwcremer wrote: post #14
content_sesh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found following Strunk's "make every word count" dictum causes me to take much more time when composing. So 4-8 pages per week sounds like it would take an awful lot of time indeed

Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. --B.Pascal (I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.)

This was especially true when everything was written out by hand. Editing on a computer changes the time to rewrite something by at least a factor of 10, maybe 100.

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#20

Post by bsder »

munchbunny wrote: post #8
devindotcom wrote: post #3

It seems clear that White (though Strunk seems to have been rather more serious about it) intended his usage guidance to be just that - guidance. Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken.

Certainly I've found it useful to know the rules well in order to understand when and why they should be bent or broken. I think this is a key point. In my favorite writing course in college, the professor chose to teach composition from the perspective of legal argumentation. We wrote 4-8 pages per week in the most economical and intentional way possible, poring over every word, every sentence, and every paragraph t…

> That wasn't going to teach any of us beautiful prose or how to craft good plots, but it got us very quickly to the point where our writing style became deliberate.

I would argue precisely the opposite.

You can't build beautiful woodworking until you can do a joint reliably and repeatedly. You can't play jazz on your musical instrument until you can play scales reliably and repeatedly.

You had a really excellent writing professor. He completely anchored the fundamentals that you needed. Now you can actually proceed to actually write.

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