The Elements of Style

Upon reading elements of style, I realize the change in language over time. Many phrases and words in the book are part of everyday speech. In the chapter entitled "Misused words and expressions", White writes about the use of "care less". (42) Often, "I could care less," is used in everyday speech. I have read in the past that the proper phrase is "I couldn't care less." This was a useful example for many writers. Other examples are useless such as "Anticipate. Use expect in the sense of simple expectation." (40) Anticipate and expect are similar words. When I think about anticipate, I assume there is an action associated with the use of the word. White uses an example, "My brother anticipated the upturn in the market." He continues with "In the second example, the word anticipated is ambiguous. It could mean simply that the brother believed the upturn would occur, or it could mean that he acted in advance of the expected upturn -- by buying stock, perhaps." I believe the use of anticipated suggests the brother took advantage of the market conditions and completed stock trades. If not, expected would be the correct choice. Ambiguity does not seem to apply. This is merely one example of selective interpretation in the book.

In chapter five, White writes about style. Rule 6, "Do not overwrite," discusses the disregard for brevity. "When writing with a computer, you must guard against wordiness. The click and flow of a word processor can be seductive, and you may find yourself adding a few unnecessary words or even a whole passage just to experience the pleasure of running your fingers over the keyboard..." The author should consider his own advice. This is a very long sentence about the mysterious powers of a computer. Last I checked, computers do not have mind control software.


Elements of Style includes some useful material. Chapter one covers basic usage of colons, semicolons, hyphens, and other elements. As I have not reviewed basic grammar rules for well over ten years, it was beneficial to review the material. "Use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of particulars, an appositive, an amplification, or an illustrative quotation." (7) This rule, for instance, documents the proper use of a colon. It would be helpful to include working definitions of words like appositive. Using the examples allows the reader to grasp meaning, but when descriptive words are used, and not understood, they confuse the reader. One can forget a great number of definitions and rules when they are rarely used over many years.