Cecily
03-09-2010, 03:09 PM
Living in England, I grew up oblivious to Strunk and White and only heard of it when I started looking at wordy websites and forums that were used by Americans.
I get the impression that many Americans are taught to revere it, but that there is a rearguard action to expose its many faults. Geoff Pullum (of Language Log) is well known for his detailed criticisms of its grammar advice, though he’s a little more lenient regarding its stylistic advice.
My own impression of S&W is biased because I’ve never seen a copy of the book, but I’ve read plenty of Pullum’s criticisms, albeit many of them appear hard to refute.
If you are not familiar with the case against, see http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497/ for a short version and http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf for a long one.
There seem to be plenty of Americans on this forum who care about language. What do you think of Strunk and White?
I get the impression that many Americans are taught to revere it, but that there is a rearguard action to expose its many faults. Geoff Pullum (of Language Log) is well known for his detailed criticisms of its grammar advice, though he’s a little more lenient regarding its stylistic advice.
My own impression of S&W is biased because I’ve never seen a copy of the book, but I’ve read plenty of Pullum’s criticisms, albeit many of them appear hard to refute.
If you are not familiar with the case against, see http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497/ for a short version and http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf for a long one.
There seem to be plenty of Americans on this forum who care about language. What do you think of Strunk and White?