E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
publicbooks.org
E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
1–10 of 60 posts
Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
#2Sadly, in Python Strunk & White are now viewed as "relics of white supremacy":
Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
#3It 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.
Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
#4My 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.
Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
#5Sadly, in Python Strunk & White are now viewed as "relics of white supremacy": https://github.com/python/peps/pull/1470
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 English.
I think we can all get behind this. The idea is that if you speak Indian English and refer to the contents of a written program as “codes” rather than “code”, that is completely fine, since it is clear and easily understandable by other English speakers. Strunk & White is kind of a trainwreck of a style manual anyway (the linked article articulates many of my complaints, but I have others). Maybe its popularity was deserved in earlier decades, I don’t know, I’m not a historian.
Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
#6Sadly, 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 class of English speakers. That class was not inclusive or representative of all the ways English is written or spoken, nor necessarily even of the "best." The book should be one source among many for those who hope to communicate clearly and concisely.
Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
#7Sadly, in Python Strunk & White are now viewed as "relics of white supremacy": https://github.com/python/peps/pull/1470
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:
Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
#8It 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 to make the language easy to understand and to make every word do work.
The professor never pretended that this was the best way to write and never claimed the result would be beautiful, though he did claim that the result would be easy to understand, which it was. Peer editing in that class was the smoothest experience I've ever had in a writing class. But he accomplished something that no other writing instructor did for me before this class: he taught how to make grammar, diction, rhythm, and even connotation an intentional thought process. He also taught how to think clearly about the point you wanted to get across.
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.
Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
#9Sadly, 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…
The vast majority of the Western canon isn't even written in English.
Re: E. B. White’s “Plain Style” at 75
#10> Strunk’s likes and dislikes, explains White, “were almost as whimsical as the choice of a necktie,” yet he had an uncanny ability to make his preferences “seem convincing.”
This is an important point: Learners need to have preferences fed to them, as they have none of their own, but the next step in learning is making your own preferences, not blindly following the ones given to you.
Also, a point of humor I rarely find anyone mention:
> “Omit needless words!”
Ha! And triple ha! How superfluous that is. Why does it need to specify "needless" at all? Are we going to omit essentials? Of course not! And it explicitly says "words" right there. Right there, mind you! What else are we to omit, lemons? Obviously, the dictum must be "Omit!" and it must never be repeated. Superfluity, in this case, does vitiate.