You may believe they are dead, but there is clearly a large part of the world that believes they are indeed alive and well. Therefore, it seems to me that we "academic grammarians" have two choices - either take up Don Quixote's metaphorical lance or figure out what it is that makes S&W alive and well and living in places like Careers.com.

Geoff Layton
 
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2011 19:30:15 +0300
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Strunk&White - Alive and Well
To: [log in to unmask]

Well. I'll contribute the title anyway.
 
'Strunk and White are Dead'
 
I was always partial to the Fowler brothers anyway. Meatier and with a sense of humo(u)r.
 
Mark
 
On Sunday, September 11, 2011 9:15 AM, "Geoffrey Layton" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
As much as we all like to beat up on Strunk and White, they are alive and well and featured guests in a recent Career Builders essay on resume writing that got extra distribution as a link on today's msn.com main news page (see below).
 
http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2721-Cover-Letters-Resumes-The-elements-of-résumé-style/?SiteId=cbmsnhp42721&sc_extcmp=JS_2721_home1?gt1=23000
 
The point is this - instead of continuing to rail against them, should we not be using what makes them so popular?  I'd suggest that at least part of the reason for their long lived success is the very prescriptivism that has been so thoroughly debunked in the academy. In other words, people (and perhaps our students are part of this ubiquitous "people" group) like to know that there is a right and wrong about grammar. And my guess is that a very large percent of students entering any composition class will list "improve my grammar" at or near the top of their list.
 
So is there any way that we academic grammarians can become the new Strunk and White (NOTE TO CAREER BUILDERS - THEY'RE DEAD!).

Geoff Layton
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