Herb (and Geoff),
I had the book recommended to me-and still see it recommended-by people who see it as a great alternative to the usual handbook. I'm much more inclined to look for advice on writing from S&W than I would from Pullum, and that may be the point Geoff is trying to make. It's too easy to criticize from the sidelines.
Strunk is early 20th century-he was White's teacher. White is one of the premier stylists of the language.
I am actually a fan of Strunk and White, but I also like to hear what my favorite writers say about writing, what my favorite musicians or songwriters say about their craft, and so on. You can and should take it with a grain of salt. It's advice, even when couched in a prescriptive way. Approached in that way, there are gems of hard earned wisdom. "Revise and rewrite." "Be clear." "Do not overstate." "Use definite, specific, concrete language." They remind us to use commas between elements in a series and put similar ideas in similar form and place things that need emphasis at the end. That's advice most writers can benefit from.
I think Pullum pretty much misses the point. You can read the entire Huddleston and Pullum student grammar and not get any good advice about writing. The fact that Strunk and White occasionally presents a dated misunderstanding about the nature of language is hardly a basis for denouncing the whole enterprise.
What Strunk and White tries to do-and occasionally with some success-is describe the nature of an effective text. You won't find that in Huddleston and Pullum because they try to describe grammar in purely formal terms, only occasionally straying into usage. The strength of S&W is that it gives clear advice, some of it by one of our best writers.
On the other hand, it's not a grammar text. It never tries to explain how language works in any kind of comprehensive way. It's easy to find places where it gives misleading advice, their views on the passive being one of those.
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 11:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Strunk&White - Alive and Well
Geoff,
I agree with your take on S&W and on its appeal to an uninformed audience. That's where I see the parallel to the 18th c. and the rise of the merchant class.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<mailto:[mailto:[log in to unmask]]> On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 10:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Strunk&White - Alive and Well
Herb -
I don't think I'm the one taking us back to the 18th century (wasn't Strunk the 19th by the way?) - I'm just responding to what amounted to an encomium to S&W published by Careers.com - essentially saying, "Follow S&W and you will be hired." I'm not saying that S&W is deserving of such (low?) praise - only that the book is still revered, and we need to recognize that fact and deal with it rather than trying to claim that a) it isn't revered and more particularly b) it shouldn't be. I think it's being praised for reasons other than why we're dismissive - in other words, we and the GU are not talking about the same thing when "grammar" is the issue (see Craig's post about usage and syntax).
Geoff Layton
________________________________
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:03:24 -0400
From: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Strunk&White - Alive and Well
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Geoff,
You're taking us back to the 18th c. when the GU was even more so and was trying more desperately to make it, which meant adopting the manners and language of the upper classes they were aspiring to join. This created a huge market for self-improvement books, social etiquette, dress, food, and especially grammar. There was a huge market for such book and no like of aspiring advice writers and publishers. We see the modern counterpart coming out occasionally now (Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, etc.), and S&W fits into that category. You're right that there's a serious demand out there that we aren't meeting, and as long as we surrender the field to the grammatical equivalent of S'mores, we won't meet it. It will take a special talent and sensitivity to write a popular book on writing that offers relevant and accurate prescriptive advice while telling the truth about language. Pinker has succeeded at the latter, but he's not addressing the audience we're talking about.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<mailto:[mailto:[log in to unmask]]> On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 7:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Strunk&White - Alive and Well
Craig,
Somehow, I find myself familiar with your comments, both analytical and historical (although I'm not sure why the S&W edition that features a forward by White's stepson Roger Angell wasn't more successful - this edition seems to have faded from the summit of the publishing pantheon).
But I digress. As is the case with other posts about this issue, you concentrate on the shortcomings of S&W based on your elevated position as a professional grammarian. What I'm trying to do is to call our collective attention to the fact that the great unwashed - specifically our students, their parents (the folks who pay our modest salaries and pensions), and those who presumably were our students but feel they haven't learned much - light on this book like bees to honey.
The reason why this is so, I claim, is that the GU (great unwashed) are desperate for somebody to tell them the proper way to speak and write standard English, and instead we deliver our contextualized, academic, conditional talk about grammar and syntax and tell the GU that there could be a "few" sections that might be useful. My observation is that the GU don't care. And that is one reason why, I think, we find ourselves marginalized. We focus on the ills we suffer at the hands of NCTE but don't notice that there is a huge audience out there who agrees with us that grammar should be taught, and yet we do nothing to appeal to these people. Instead, they turn to S&W, Grammar Girl, and other sites that offer even less insight than S&W
Geoff Layton
> Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:45:52 -0400
> From: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: StTo join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"
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