So, style.
Strunk and White passed by me a couple of times recently, the second time in a situation that prompted me to re-read the thing with the want to again be familiar enough with it to give comment upon it. It is a book that probably gained its fame for there being nothing like it when it was first published (I do not know, but I would bet). And, there are things in it that are worth hearing for a writer if they had never heard them before. Lists like the "Words and Expressions Commonly Misused" are always worth going through, wherever you find them. If I have one comment on Strunk and White's list, it is that you should notice that when they give examples, sometimes their improvement/correction changes the meaning of the sentence. Actually, this throughout the book. To the other side, though, as a grammar book, it is wholly inadequate, and there is no excuse with someone who has reason to care for not owning a Chicago Manual of Style or an MLA Handbook, one or the other.
My biggest issue – even more than with the grammar – is with the final section, "An Approach to Style," written entirely by White. I disagree with him on the majority of his pieces of advice, either specifically to the point or with how he approaches it. I think the value of what he presents is limited to practical writing (and even then, at times, I have questions). When you move to creative writing, to making things out of words, suddenly his "Approach to Style" is, like the grammar section, greatly inadequate, if not at times out and out bad advice. Enough so I thought I would give my hand at writing a response. In a great part, my want to write this was to see if I could, and if I were being paid I might do some things differently. Though, there is also hope that I am presenting things worth thinking about, particularly in that I am approaching this entirely through the subject of creative writing, which feels at times almost secondary to White's aims. In that, his "advice" seems worth the revisiting. (To note, if you want to just have a browse, the most important entries are probably 1, 2, 3, 5, 11, and 16.)
To make it easy on me, White begins with nonsense, straight up:
