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The Elements of Style, 4th Ed

"Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor."

"7. Use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of particulars, an appositive, an amplification, or an illustrative quotation."

"All three examples show the weakness inherent in the word not. Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; the reader wishes to be told what is. Hence, as a rule, it is better to express even a negative in positive form."

"If your every sentence admits a doubt, your writing will lack authority. Save the auxiliaries would, should, could, may, might, and can for situations involving real uncertainty."

"If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is this: the surest way to arouse and hold the reader's attention is by being specific, definite, and concrete. The greatest writers-Homer, Dante, Shakespeare-are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures."

"17. Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

"The fact that is an especially debilitating expression. It should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs."

"As the active voice is more concise than the passive, and a positive statement more concise than a negative one, many of the examples given under Rules 14 and 15 illustrate this rule well."

"A writer who has written a series of loose sentences should recast enough of them to remove the monotony, replacing them with simple sentences, sentences of two clauses joined by a semicolon, periodic sentences of two clauses, or sentences (loose or periodic) of three clauses--whichever best represents the real relations of thought."

"A subject coming first in its sentence may be emphatic, but hardly by its position alone. In the sentence

Great kings worshiped at his shrine

the emphasis upon kings arises largely from its meaning and from the context. To receive special emphasis, the subject of a sentence must take the position of the predicate.

Through the middle of the valley flowed a winding stream

The principle that the proper place for what is to be made most prominent is the end applies equally to words of a sentence, to the sentences of a paragraph, and to the paragraphs of a composition."

"The exclamation mark is to be reserved for use after true exclamations or commands."

"Do not use a hyphen between words that can better be written as one word: water-fowl, waterfowl. Common sense will aid you in the decision, but a dictionary is more reliable. The steady evolution of the language seems to favor union: two words eventually become one, usually after a period of hyphenation."

"Obviously, we ask too much of a hyphen when we ask it to cast its spell over words it does not adjoin."

"Farther. Further. The two words are commonly interchanged, but there is a distinction word observingL farther serves best as a distance word, further as a time or quantity word. You chase a ball farther than the other fellow; you pursue a subject further."

"Fix. Colloquial in America for arrange, prepare, mend. The usage is well established. But bear in mind that this very is from figere: "to make firm," "to place definitely." These are the preferred meanings of the word."

"Hopefully. This once-useful adverb meaning "with hope" has been distorted and is no widely used to mean "I hope" or "it is to be hoped." Such use is not merely wrong, it is silly. To say. "Hopefully I'll leave on the noon plane" is to talk nonsense. Do you mean you'll leave on the noon plane in a hopeful frame of mind? Or do you mean you hope you'll leave on the noon plane? Whichever you mean, you haven't said it clearly. Although the word in its new, free-floating capacity may be pleasurable and even useful to many, it offends the ear of many others, who do not like to see words dulled or eroded, particularly when the erosion leads to ambiguity, softness, or nonsense."

"Interest. An unconvincing word; avoid it as a means of introduction. Instead of announcing that what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so."

"Noun used as verb. Many nouns have lately been pressed into service as verbs. Not all are bad, but all are suspect."

"Writing is, for most, laborious and slow. The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by."

"4. Write with nouns and verbs.

Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjective and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place."