
Geoffrey Pullum continues his critique of Strunk & White [audio] - gruseom
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103171738
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tokenadult
I think what was lost in the discussion in the last thread about Pullum is
that he really chose his words with care, and was careful to criticize Strunk
and White as GRAMMAR advice--because Pullum is a grammarian, and Strunk and
White are perhaps prose writers, but not scholars of grammar.

Meanwhile I thought that most readers of English could learn a lot about good
writing by reading George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language,"

<http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm>

or

<http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit>

which deals with more important issues than Strunk and White anyway, and is
very thought-provoking.

~~~
gruseom
Yes, Pullum's harsh criticism of the grammar advice is combined with lukewarm
approval of the style advice and full-on praise for White himself as a writer.
That's too complicated - it's not how emotional associations work.

Incidentally, I don't know what "blogs" Pullum is referring to in the
interview, but pretty much every point he mentions came up in the HN thread.
Perhaps he's been lurking!

~~~
jeffcoat
I haven't heard the interview, but Pullum is a regular on Language Log; one
recent post is a direct reply to the comments posted on fark.com:
<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1319>

~~~
tokenadult
"I've been an American citizen longer than you've been alive"

Funny. Thanks for posting that link. Pullum is a good writer. One of the other
ripostes is much funnier, and fits Fark well. I'm glad to see Pullum
recommended Style: Toward Clarity and Grace as a style guide. That is a good
book.

