Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

publicbooks.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 60 posts

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#31

Post by devindotcom »

Veen wrote: post #17
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…

> 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 whit…

James Baldwin's writing certainly is "the product of a period and locale in which white supremacy was more or less unquestioned by a large proportion of the English-speaking population." Do you think it is otherwise? I am not dismissing the work, I am looking at its context.

White supremacy is more than klan rallies in Alabama. It was a major part of thinking and writing in the US and English-speaking world in general for a long time, a mindset and set of assumptions and lessons that changed how everyone did pretty much everything. It's hard to imagine any major piece media emerging from the 19th-20th centuries that does not bear the mark of white supremacy in one form or another.

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#32

Post by gfody »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #21

Good writing matters. One of the most undervalued skills in engineering, especially at the Senior+ levels. Being able to write a clear, concise, well-argued design doc will be useful to you long after the hot framework of the moment has become obsolete. And yet, few people take the time to hone the skill. Strunk and White is a classic, sure, which this article helps to put in context. But it’s 75 years old, and it ha…

Writing Effective Use Cases by Alistair Cockburn [1] is a pretty solid style guide for technical writing.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Effective-Cases-Alistair-Cock...

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#34

Post by ghaff »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #30
sokoloff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ability to write English has almost surely had more influence on my career after age 35 than my ability to write code. I wish I could go back and apologize to my English teachers along the way for how little effort and respect I offered to them/their courses.

Conversely, I had no idea skills picked up when going to grad school in the humanities would prove so useful in getting promoted to and performing in the upper levels of the IC career track. (That said, I too was bored in high school English.) It is distressing how much emphasis is placed on mastering toy Leetcode-style algorithm problems in software career-building (for obvious reasons - they're used in interviews)…

I have engineering degrees and was a product manger for a long time. My jobs over the last 20 years have almost nothing to do with anything specific I learned in an unrelated field of engineering--though learning to think/problem solving/etc. may well be. And far more to the fact that I've written for newspapers and have increasingly spoken and written on tech matters over the years.

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#35

Post by dbtc »

devindotcom wrote: post #31
Veen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 whit…

James Baldwin's writing certainly is "the product of a period and locale in which white supremacy was more or less unquestioned by a large proportion of the English-speaking population." Do you think it is otherwise? I am not dismissing the work, I am looking at its context. White supremacy is more than klan rallies in Alabama. It was a major part of thinking and writing in the US and English-speaking world in genera…

Influenced by, not a product of.

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#37

Post by gfody »

Veen wrote: post #12
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".

Charlotte's Web is also a literary masterpiece - definitely reread as an adult if you only remember it from your childhood. The Audible is narrated by EBW himself.

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#38

Post by adolph »

See also Cormac McCarthy’s tips on how to write a great science paper:

When you think you’re done, read your work aloud to yourself or a friend. Find a good editor you can trust and who will spend real time and thought on your work. Try to make life as easy as possible for your editing friends. Number pages and double space.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02918-5

https://www.openculture.com/2019/10/novelist-cormac-mccarthy...

Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75

#40

Post by ncmncm »

Whenever I find a copy of Elements of Style, I throw it away. I have deep-sixed at least four copies in the past five years.

Geoff Pullum, at Edinburgh, calls it "The Nasty Book", because it makes people needlessly insecure about their writing, and because its supposed rules are not followed by any great writer.

The most damning fact is that, when he produced the second edition after Strunk died, White made up a bunch more phony rules, and then went through Strunk's original text and doctored it to obey them. Then, he failed to obey them in his own text--frequently on the same page where he was advocating them.

There is a certain amount of correct advice, but it is the same as elsewhere, e.g.: "omit needless words". Did we need a book to tell us that?

But his victims love him.

Post reply on HN