Strunk, The Elements of Style 1918 edition
Author: Unknown
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Copyright c 2010 by Geoffrey K. Pullum. To appear in English Today, June 2010

The Land of the Free and The Elements of Style

William Strunk and E. B. White have a vice-like grip on educated Americans’ views about grammar and usage. Yet almost everything they say on that topic is wrong.

Geoffrey K. Pullum

1

Introduction

2

Inaccuracy

The Elements of Style (henceforth, Elements) is a slender book of I begin with a few cases in which Elements offers accounts of the advice on usage and writing, revised by the admired novelist and grammatical facts about Standard English that are flatly contra-essayist E. B. White from a book by his former English professor.

dicted by educated usage. And I mean the usage not just of today, White did well to accept Macmillan’s suggestion that he should
but of Strunk’s era, the late 19th and very early 20th century.

revise and expand his former professor’s book for commercial
republication: successive editions of the revision sold over ten million copies. Many college-educated Americans revere

2.1

Verb agreement

Ele-
ments, swear by it, carry it around with them. It was reissued

‘The number of the subject determines the number of the verb’,
in in April 2009 to a chorus of approval from famous American
says the heading of §9 of the 1979 and subsequent editions, a sec-literary figures. One fan has published a whole book about its
tion that White added.2 The statement is certainly true (though history (Garvey 2009).

incomplete: person is also relevant). But one of the statements in The title of Elements suggests a focus on style, but in fact
the section (p. 10) is this:

much of it concerns grammar. The final chapter, “An Approach
to Style”, opens by characterizing the earlier parts of the book With none, use the singular verb when the word means
as “concerned with what is correct, or acceptable, in the use of

“no one” or “not one.”

English”, and not with “style in its broader meaning”; and in-
deed, Elements is frequently cited as an authority on questions of The sentence None of us are perfect is given as an example of
grammar.

incorrect grammar; None of us is perfect is claimed to be the cor-I believe the success of Elements to be one of the worst things rection.

to have happened to English language education in America in

The arrogance here is breathtaking. None of us are perfect
the past century. The book’s style advice, largely vapid and obvi-is a line from literature. It is uttered by Canon Chasuble in the ous (“Do not overwrite”; “Be clear”), may do little damage; but second act of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
the numerous statements about grammatical correctness are ac-

(1895), possibly the greatest of all stage comedies in English.

tually harmful. They are riddled with inaccuracies, uninformed

It is absurd to suggest that Wilde didn’t know the rule of verb by evidence, and marred by bungled analysis. Elements is a dog-agreement, and surely false that he wanted to depict the learned matic bookful of bad usage advice, and the people who rely on it Dr. Chasuble as unable to speak Standard English. White is sim-have no idea how badly off-beam its grammatical claims are. In
ply stipulating a rule that doesn’t accord with Standard English this essay I provide some illustrations, and a review of some of usage, not even the usage that prevailed in his youth.

the book’s most striking faults.

It is extremely easy to confirm this today, when hundreds of

We are in fact dealing with a number of slightly different
classic novels are available in readily searchable plain text at the books. Strunk’s first privately published version of Elements was Gutenberg Project site (http://www.gutenberg.org). One can
dated 1918. There followed a little-known commercial version
just pick a random novel from about a hundred years ago and
in 1920, two radically rewritten and now forgotten editions coau-search it. I chose Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), published two
thored by Edward Tenney in 1934 and 1935, and six editions of
years before White was born. Searching for none of us, none of
the White revision (1959, 1972, 1979, 2000, 2004, and 2009, the you, and none of them, I found that there are no examples at all last being just a 50th-anniversary reissue of the 2000 edition).

of singular agreement with these phrases. Wherever they occur

I will try not to be too pedantic, and I certainly will not
as subjects of present-tense verbs, the agreement is plural: none be exhaustive, in my comparison of the different editions; I
of us were surprised; none of them were of very recent date; none will distinguish among them only as absolutely necessary. The
of them are very large.

1918 original is rare, but its text can be found free online at Of course, my point is not that singular agreement is wrong.

http://www.bartleby.com/141. I will trust this transcription;

Searching literary works will bring up examples showing that
when I cite Strunk (1918) it will be without page references, and some writers favour the singular. But it also brings up plenty of will refer to the online text.1
other plural agreement cases, from paragons of excellent English 1Thanks to Andrea Olinger for generous help in providing me with an older edition of Elements; to Barbara Scholz for supplying comments on earlier drafts; and to Jan Freeman and David Russinoff for both of these valuable kinds of assistance.

2Eleanor Gould Packard assisted White in the 1979 revision. Some of the points introduced may have been her idea rather than White’s.

1
writing: for example, G. K. Chesterton, in The Defendant (1902) It can of course be checked in a few seconds whether this
saying none of us are really Copernicans in our actual outlook.

accords with the practice of good writers of Standard English.

There is variation within Standard English on this matter. No one Choosing a work at random again, I found that the text of Al-who looks for evidence could call the plural agreement wrong.

ice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), published four years be-

To tell students or writers that it is wrong is to tell them an un-fore Strunk was born (and possibly read to him when he was a
truth. But White did not look for evidence. His dictum that none child) contains 19 occurrences of however that are followed by
must be singular, even when it has a clearly plural complement
a comma, and every single one begins its clause. That is not
like of us, has no justification.

because Lewis Carroll was wrong about English; it is because

As Ben Zimmer pointed out on Language Log (7 February

Strunk and White are wrong about English.

2008), Thomas Lounsbury had already delivered a scathing com-

Again, of course, there is variation. It is not an error to place ment on this sort of pontification in a book called The Standard however after the subject, or after the first auxiliary verb; it is of Usage in English in 1908:

an option. Henry James had a strong preference for that option, putting only 6% of his uses of however at the beginning of the

There is no harm in a man’s limiting his employment
clause. But on the other hand, Mark Twain placed the word ini-
of none to the singular in his own individual usage, if
tially in more than two-thirds of the instances.3 In The Impor-
he derives any pleasure from this particular form of
tance of Being Earnest the proportion is the same (8 instances of linguistic martyrdom. But why should he go about
however sentence-initial, 4 later in the clause), and modern copy-seeking to inflict upon others the misery which owes
edited prose is very similar (in the Wall Street Journal between its origin to his own ignorance?

1987 and 1989 nearly 40% of the cases of connective however

As we shall see, Strunk and White seek to inflict a lot more mis-are sentence-initial).

ery on their hapless readers.

Conceivably Strunk was trying to inculcate in everyone the
habit of writing like Henry James and not like Mark Twain (not
the best advice for every context, surely!). But whatever his mo-2.2

Pronoun case
tives, telling people that good writing never uses however to in-White added another section to the 1979 edition, §10, headed:

troduce a clause is simply untruthful.

“Use the proper case of pronoun.” One wants to be proper, of

The motivation for Strunk’s policy may have been fear
course; but not to sound absurd. Yet White’s first block of exam-of what Arnold Zwicky calls “temporary potential ambiguity”

ples includes this one:

(‘Once you look for temporary potential ambiguity, you’ll find
it everywhere’, Language Log, http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.

(1)

The culprit, it turned out, was he.

edu/nll/?p=267 24 June 2008). Strunk acknowledges that How-
ever you advise him, he will probably do as he thinks best is fine.

Try reading that aloud.

It is not normal English; the he is

There however means “regardless of how”. He may have worried
grotesquely pompous, especially in the context of the informal
that confusion might threaten if we allowed the other however
style suggested by the parenthetical “it turned out”. White seems also to appear clause-initially as well. But if so, it was a strange to have no ear for style at all.

worry. I have not been able to construct any convincing case of This is true not just in contemporary English; it would have
unresolvable ambiguity between the “regardless of how” mean-
sounded like an ridiculous affectation 1979 when White wrote the ing and the “nevertheless” meaning. The comma after the latter
section, and even 60 years before that, when White was Strunk’s invariably disambiguates.

student at Cornell. People did not say such things. In Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Avonlea, a popular book published in the

And even if ambiguity did occasionally arise, a blanket ban

USA in 1909, we find phrases like if I was her, not if I were she.

on initial placement of the word in the latter sense would not be No one could justify teaching American undergraduates a
motivated. We don’t work on improving driving skills by ban-
hundred years later to write something like The culprit was he.

ning the internal combustion engine. And we shouldn’t try to

It would simply expose them to mockery. Yet the example and
improve undergraduate writing skills by imposing blanket pro-
the associated bad usage advice survives in all the subsequent
hibitions that were never respected in the prose of respectable editions of Elements.

authors.

2.3

Connective however

2.4

Singular They

Recent editions of Elements (e.g. Strunk and White 2000, pp. 48–

49) say bluntly: “Avoid starting a sentence with however when

Strunk was perfectly well aware that forms of the pronoun they
the meaning is ‘nevertheless’.” And this is not one of White’s ad-were used with singular antecedents, especially quantified or inditions. It is a survival of essentially the same instruction given definite ones, and that it was gaining ground even ninety years in Strunk (1918):

ago. Some of what he said was quite perceptive. He noted that
perhaps in order to avoid clumsy he or she disjunctions, speak-

However. In the meaning nevertheless, not to come
ers were using the pronoun they with quantified antecedents like first in its sentence or clause.

someone:

3Mark Liberman, ‘The evolution of disornamentation’, on Language Log (http://158.130.17.5/∼myl/languagelog/archives/001912.html), 21 February 2005.

2

They. A common inaccuracy is the use of the plural
revision of Strunk kept his disapproving section on they, updating pronoun when the antecedent is a distributive expres-it only slightly with some mealy-mouthed discussion of avoiding sion such as each, each one, everybody, every one,
purportedly sex-neutral he with clumsy disjunctions (he or she) many a man, which, though implying more than one
or rephrasing in the plural (White suggests you might “put all
person, requires the pronoun to be in the singular. Sim-
controversial nouns in the plural and avoid the choice of sex al-ilar to this, but with even less justification, is the use
together, although you may find your prose sounding general and of the plural pronoun with the antecedent anybody,
diffuse as a result”).

any one, somebody, some one, the intention being ei-

It should not be thought that White simply didn’t know that
ther to avoid the awkward “he or she,” or to avoid
singular they is normal Standard English. He may not have no-
committing oneself to either. Some bashful speakers
ticed the many instances found in Chaucer, Shakespeare, Mil-
even say, “A friend of mine told me that they, etc.”

ton, Austen, and hundreds of other much-admired authors; but

(http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk3.html)

in his own novel Charlotte’s Web a character says: “But some-
body taught you, didn’t they?” (Freeman 2005), so he can hardly The distributive expressions he cites, when they are subjects, do claim to have been ignorant of the singular use of they. What he require the tensed verb of the clause to be in the singular: we asserts in Elements is something he would never have accepted
say everyone is, not *everyone are. But that doesn’t determine
with respect to his own writing: that he should have written “But whether such an expression can be the antecedent for an occur-somebody taught you, didn’t he?”.

rence of they. Pronouns in English are not deployed according

The long history of Elements should not be forgotten in con-
to a rule that can be conflated with subject-verb agreement. As nection with its disapprobation of singular they: when Strunk was Strunk correctly noted, even back at the beginning of the 20th
writing “Use he with all the above words,” women still didn’t
century some “bashful speakers” were using they to avoid identi-have the vote in America. But times have changed, and it is
fying the sex of someone they had mentioned.

surely unconscionable to be dragging purportedly sex-neutral he And Oscar Wilde’s character Lady Bracknell in The Impor-into the 21st century. That is what Elements is still stubbornly tance of Being Earnest is about as far from being a bashful col-recommending.

lege kid as one can imagine: she is one of the most formidably

I have always been much amused that a reviewer for Tele-
pedantic speakers in all of English literature. Yet when explain-phone Engineer and Management praised the book in an unin-
ing why she wants Algernon to arrange suitable music for a social tendedly humorous sentence quoted on the back cover of the 1979
event, she says:

edition:

(2)

It is my last reception, and one wants something that will

It is hard to imagine an engineer or a manager who
encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the sea-
doesn’t need to express himself in English prose as
son when everyone has practically said whatever they had
part of his job.

to say. . .

You might think that some woman engineer or manager would

The antecedent for her use of they is everyone, which takes sin-have expressed himself on the inappropriate sexism of this sen-
gular agreement (note has), but can serve as antecedent for they tence, and done his best to convince the publisher to remove it.

nonetheless.

But apparently not: it is still there on the back of my copy of the Earnest was very much a contemporary play for Strunk; he

4th edition (2000).

was 25 when it was first staged. Does Strunk really want to claim that this formidable grande dame must be dismissed as evincing
a “common inaccuracy”?

2.5

Split infinitives

And if so, what would he have had her say instead? On that

The “split infinitive” construction was never mentioned at all in point he does make himself clear. He says:

Strunk (1918), but it was added two years later in the little-known Use he with all the above words, unless the antecedent
first trade edition of 1920:

is or must be feminine.

Split Infinitive. There is precedent from the four-

So Strunk is recommending that Lady Bracknell should have re-
teenth century downward for interposing an adverb be-
ferred to “the end of the season when everyone has practically
tween to and the infinitive which it governs, but the
said whatever he had to say.” That policy would imply that we
construction is in disfavor and is avoided by nearly all
should write sentences like these:

careful writers. [Strunk 1920, p. 45]

(3)

a.

?I have a job for any boy or girl who thinks he can Strunk is right about the seven centuries of precedents, but wrong handle it.

about the disfavor and the usage of careful writers. George O.

b.

?I am sure you would not laugh if your mother or your Curme had already made this clear by amassing a large collec-father had broken his leg.

tion from literary works (see Curme 1914, and also Curme 1930,

458–467, esp. 461–465). Curme asserted firmly that adjuncts be-
c.

?I doubt whether any man or woman could hold his tween to and the verb of an infinitival complement had been em-breath for that long.

ployed in English syntax throughout the history of the language; He in such cases is not, of course, the right choice. Using they that the option is useful and effective; and that it is actually more (or their) would be much better. Yet all of the editions of White’s characteristic of good writing than either conversation (where the 3
phrase planning that leads to pre-head adjuncts is a bit less com-participial verb: Strunk insists that subjects of gerund-participial mon) or the work of minor authors (who Curme suggests avoid
clauses must be genitive.

spliting infinitives out of cowardice and insecurity, having heard Almost unbelievably, Strunk maintains (1920, p. 43) that the
that some disapprove).

familiar formula in (4) is an error of grammar:

White retained Strunk’s 1920 paragraph, but added to it inex-

(4)

Do you mind me asking a question?

pertly. He states (Strunk & White 2000, p. 58) that “the construction should be avoided unless the writer wishes to place unusual The purported correction is my for me. He gives (5) as a second stress on the adverb.” But the preverbal position does not stress example of the same fault:

the adverb. Typically the reverse is the case (as noted by Curme 1930, 459–460). A suitable word order for emphasising the verb

(5)

There was little prospect of the Senate acccepting even this
would have the verb as late as possible: It would be hard to ad-compromise.

equately expréss it. The best word order to emphasise the the

Strunk admits that the construction with the plain or accusative manner adverb would have the adverb last: It would be hard to
subject “is occasionally found, and has its defenders”; But
express it ádequately.

nonetheless, (5) “has to do not with a prospect of the Senate,

White returns to the topic of placing adjuncts between to and
but with a prospect of accepting”, so “the construction is plainly the verb in the chapter he added on style. The “violation” that the illogical” (I confess that I cannot follow this logical accusation).

split infinitive represents is magnanimously dismissed as “harm-Strunk then cites two interesting examples with a rather long
less and scarcely perceptible”; he acknowledges that for a sen-
subject where it is clearly the genitive subject that seems unactence like I cannot bring myself to really like the fellow the alter-ceptable rather than the plain case. The first is this one (Strunk native would be “stiff, needlessly formal”. But he is wrong here 1920, p. 43; Strunk & White 2000, p. 56):

too. The split infinitive is not a mark of informal style. It is not formality that would be increased if the order were shifted to I (6)

?In the event of a reconsideration of the whole matter’s be-
cannot bring myself really to like the fellow; it’s ambiguity. Recoming necessary . . .

ally would quite probably be read as modifying bring rather than like.

This would be much better phrased with the subject in the plain Curme’s many examples make it quite clear that serious writ-case (a reconsideration of the whole matter) rather than the gening in formal style also contains split infinitives. Strunk and itive. But Strunk’s response to such cases is simply to bite the White were, once again, both simply ignorant of the relevant
bullet: he sticks with his edict, and recommends recasting the en-facts.

tire sentence (using If it should become necessary to reconsider the whole matter). White repeats all this.

There is no recognition here of the fact that the genitive sub-

2.6

Nouns as verbs
ject was the innovation, and that use of the genitive had been
controversial throughout the 19th century (for an enlightening

The section headed “Noun used as verb” is one of White’s revi-
discussion with many relevant literary examples see Merriam-
sions in the second edition (1972, p. 48). Of such uses, he says Webster 1994, 753–755, or Merriam-Webster 2002, 598–600).

that “all are suspect.” The two that he exemplifies are host and What Strunk asserts, and the White revision carries into the 21st gift. By the third edition (1979, p. 54) he has added chair, head-century in Strunk & White (2000), is that clauses with non-
quarter, and debut. Grumbling about noun-to-verb conversions is genitive subjects and gerund-participial verbs are not grammat-a staple of prescriptivist discourse, but the instances objected to ical in English. This is not helpful usage advice; it is just un-are entirely arbitrary. Prescriptivists froth and fume about talk of true. Literate native speakers sometimes give gerund-participial hosting, gifting, dialoguing, contacting, and perhaps scheduling, clauses genitive subjects and sometimes give them plain-case
but they never seem to object to talk of booking a room, tabling a subjects (accusative in the case of pronouns). For example, the motion, or remaindering a book. The honest way to give a general Merriam-Webster article notes that Lewis Carroll used both in
principle about using nouns as verbs is not that every case is sus-hopes of [his being able to join me] and prevented [any of it be-pect — nobody seriously maintains that; it is that you should use ing heard] on the same day (in correspondence, 11 March 1867).

as verbs those words that other people use as verbs. But there’s White kept Strunk’s examples in his 1959 revision (p. 44),
not much zip or fire to that piece of homely wisdom.

and in the second edition (1972); but by 1979 he (or his editor) apparently lost faith, and found it impossible to continue pretend-2.7

Participles and genitives
ing that Do you mind me asking? is ungrammatical; so the exam-
ple (4) was quietly dropped, and the topic was introduced using The section inaccurately headed “Participle for verbal noun” is just (5).

one that originates in Strunk (1920). The supposed error is de-

White had also dropped a paragraph of Strunk (1920) that ac-
scribed wrongly: since no verb has distinct forms for what are
knowledged, correctly, that the plain case seems particularly ac-traditionally called the “present participle” and the “verbal noun”

ceptable after the verb imagine (Strunk had cited I cannot imag-or gerund, substituting one for the other would be impossible to ine Lincoln refusing his assent), together with a citation of Fowler detect. There is just only one form, called the gerund-participle and Fowler (1906) — though again Strunk had been prepared to
in Huddleston and Pullum (2002, henceforth CGEL). What is at
bite the bullet, offering the opinion that there was only “a slight stake is the case marking of the subject in clauses with a gerund-loss of vividness” if the genitive was substituted, and that by 4
sticking with the genitive case “the writer will always be on the very rare). And to shift the ground to ambiguity is to abandon
safe side.”

aesthetics and intelligence and logic and turn instead to commuThe variations between editions are significant here because
nicative efficiency.

they show a trend. Strunk (1918) said nothing about genitives

But new charges follow: it is “new” (therefore bad?), “free-
being required as subjects of gerund-participles. Strunk (1920) floating” (undisciplined?), “pleasurable” (hedonistic?).

The
introduced the topic, but clearly recognized that the issue was de-word has been “dulled” (like a knife?), “eroded” (like a river
batable. White in 1959 cut some of that recognition out, and
bank?). . . White wanders from metaphor to metaphor. And fi-
in the 1979 revision took out a particularly dubious example.

nally he starts repeating himself. He returns to the allegation of Overall, the drift is toward dogmatic opposition to plain or ac-

“ambiguity”, adds the new charge of “softness” (use this word
cusative subjects of gerund-participials, no matter what the usage and you’re a sissy!), and finally wheels back once more to “non-evidence might suggest, and downplaying of any conceivable de-
sense”. He doesn’t know where he is going. He cycles through
bate.

a dozen different putative faults or sins, raving like a drunk. His principles — Strunk’s “Omit needless words” and his own “Do
not overwrite” — are forgotten.

3

Vanity

It is quite astonishing that anyone concerned with good writ-
ing could admire White’s undisiplined blithering about hopefully, White’s assumption that his idiosyncratic prejudices about in-and more so that readers should continue to value it today. For the dividual words or constructions should be laws for everyone to
issue disappeared from serious discussion a quarter of a century live by, no matter how odd and peculiar to White they might be, ago. In 1965 the popular hue and cry against the modal adjunct
strikes me as a peculiar kind of vanity. If he dislikes, say, degree use had started (Follett 1966 voiced the definitive complaint, and adjuncts qualifying the word unique, he just adds to the book
probably inspired White); by 1975 the dispute was at its peak;

(2000, p. 62) a stipulation that it is a mistake. (Strunk made no and by 1985 it was basically over. Yet in The Elements of Style such claim.) If it’s unpleasant for him, it’s an error for you. He the forgotten dispute remains trapped forever like a fly in amber.

will simply bully you into agreement. I’ll consider just the two worst examples of White’s vanity in the next two subsections.

3.2

Preposition stranding

3.1

Modal hopefully

There is more nonsense in White’s brief treatment of whether
prepositions can be stranded, i.e. syntactically separated from The paradigm example of White attempting to bully the reader
their objects, as in What were you thinking of

? or Whatever
into accepting one of his pet peeves is his appalling paragraph on he puts his hand to
he does well.

hopefully. Strunk was long dead before the use of hopefully as a This is one of the oldest of prescriptivist chestnuts, originat-modal adjunct (or “sentence adverb”) ever started its upswing in ing in an idiosyncratic grumble by John Dryden in 1672. The
popularity. Indeed, White missed mentioning it in 1959, because topic made no appearance in Strunk (1918). But White wan-the increase in popularity did not begin until the 1960s (Merriam-ders into it, oddly, where you would never think of looking for Webster 2002, 393). But since the 1972 edition the book has
it: a section entitled “Avoid fancy words” (Strunk & White 2000, included this flailing, raving, undisciplined paragraph: (see e.g.

V.§14, 77–78). Starting with an injunction to avoid “fancy” Lati-Strunk & White 2000, p. 48):

nate words where Anglo-Saxon ones would do, White drifts into
the topic of having a good ear for the distinction between fancy Hopefully. This once-useful adverb meaning “with
and plain (Strunk & White 2000, pp. 77–78):

hope” has been distorted and is now widely used to
mean “I hope” or “it is to be hoped.” Such use is

The question of ear is vital. Only the writer whose ear
not merely wrong, it is silly. To say, “Hopefully I’ll
is reliable is in a position to use bad grammar deliber-
leave on the noon plane” is nonsense. Do you mean
ately; this writer knows for sure when a colloquialism
you’ll leave on the noon plane in a hopeful frame of
is better than formal phrasing and is able to sustain the
mind? Or do you mean you hope you’ll leave on the
work at a level of good taste. So cock your ear. Years
noon plane? Whichever you mean, you haven’t said it
ago, students were warned not to end a sentence with
clearly. Although the word in its new, free-floating ca-
a preposition; time, of course, has softened that rigid
pacity may be pleasurable and even useful to many, it
decree. Not only is the preposition acceptable at the
offends the ear of many others, who do not like to see
end, sometimes it is more effective in that spot than
words dulled or eroded, particularly when the erosion
anywhere else. “A claw hammer, not an ax, was the
leads to ambiguity, softness, or nonsense.

tool he murdered her with.” This is preferable to “A
claw hammer, not an ax, was the tool with which he

White’s furious hostility to the modal adjunct use is defended
murdered her.” Why? Because it sounds more violent,
with variegated spluttering. The word has been “distorted” and
more like murder. A matter of ear.

“offends the ear” (aesthetic judgments); it is “wrong” (ungram-
matical), “silly” (unintelligent), “nonsense” (illogical). His ex-An alleged expert in writing is telling us that stranded preposi-ample about the noon plane illustrates none of these points: there tions sound like murder: when your lover murmurs “You’re the
is no contradiction or incoherence, but at best only a possible amonly one that I want to tell my secrets to,” you should brace your-biguity (not very plausibly, because fronted manner adjuncts are self for the claw hammer. (Notice that fronting the preposition in 5
that sentence is not even possible: if your lover murmurs *You’re was assassinated by him, because Oswald is mentioned in the
the only one to that I want to tell my secrets, you’re having an question and doesn’t count as new.

affair with a foreigner.)

Now, a first-person pronoun cannot possibly count as new

This advice is not just atavistic but flagrantly inaccurate.

information in the discourse: there always has to be an utterer, White apparently cannot tell the slight informality of preposition so the utterer is always old information (see CGEL, p. 1444).

stranding from risky dabbling in “bad grammar” that one would

And the effect is even stronger with a sentence like Strunk’s (7b), use only when depicting hideous violence in the colloquial id-involving a statement about personal memory: no one but the
iom. A man with a tin ear is advising students on the importance speaker could plausibly be the rememberer of the Boston visit,
of “ear”.

so it is the information about the visit that counts as new.

Thus Strunk chose an independently bizarre sentence which
violates an information-structure constraint, and used it illicitly to 4

Inconsistency
cast aspersions on all instances of the construction it represents.

He could hardly have been unaware that he had read and writ-

A striking aspect of Elements is the degree to which its authors ten tens of thousands of passive clauses that were nothing like as (and White especially) preach against alleged sins that they are unacceptable.

privately very happy to practice. There are many passages that

White, of course, drank in the prejudice against the passive,
are self-undercutting in that the edicts enunciated are clearly and and kept the Boston example word for word in the 1959 and
visibly not obeyed by the enunciator, even in that very section.

later editions. Perhaps he even believed that he had learned from And in some cases relevant evidence is actually concealed. I’ll Strunk to expunge the passive from his prose. But look at the evi-discuss four examples.

dence. In the first paragraph of the the introduction to the revised edition, where White tells of how much he learned from Strunk at 4.1

Actives and passives

Cornell, he calls Strunk (1918) a textbook required for the course (that’s a passive clause used as an adjunct in noun phrase struc-A section in the chapter headed “Elementary Principles of Com-
ture). The book was known on the campus as “the little book”,
position” insists you must “Use the active voice” (Strunk & he tells us (that’s another passive); It had been privately printed White 2000, 18–19). This section derives from Strunk (1918).

by the author (that’s yet another). The paragraph drips with pas-He hated the passive, and particularly deprecated the use of one sives.

passive dependent on another (as in He has been proved to have

But it is not fully clear to me that either Strunk or White had been seen entering the building). But note how he says what’s
a good grasp of how to tell actives and passives apart. There
wrong with it: “the word properly related to the second passive are some puzzling differences between the various editions that is made the subject of the first.” This has a passive reduced rela-would be rather tedious to track in detail, but let me simply
tive (properly related to the second passive) in the subject, and a note the remarkable instance of either unclarity or confusion that passive main clause (is made the subject. . . ).

can be found in the most widely known version, the 4th edition

Indeed, the very first sentence of Strunk (1918), the opening

(2000).

sentence of his introductory chapter, has two finite clauses, and both are passive: This book is intended for use in English courses Stressing that “The habitual use of the active voice . . . makes in which the practice of composition is combined with the study for forcible writing”, the text continues (using a passive once of literature.

again): “Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can

What are we to think of this work that makes free use of the
be made lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the passive construction (like all other writers down the centuries) but active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is, or instructs trainee writers that they are supposed to avoid it? If the could be heard.” To illustrate the point, these four examples are passive is wicked and improper, Strunk and White are hypocrites; cited as in need of correction:

if it is not, they are liars. There seems to be no other possibility.

(8)

a.

There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the

The attempt Strunk makes to convince students of the unde-
ground.

sirability of passives is in my view intellectually dishonest right from the outset. He points out that (7a) is more “direct and vig-b.

At dawn the crowing of a rooster could be heard.

orous” than (7b).

c.

The reason that he left college was that his health be-
came impaired.

(7)

a.

I shall always remember my first visit to Boston.

d.

It was not long before she was very sorry that she had
b.

? My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by
said what she had.

me.

These are the four sentences that are given as the proposed cor-But the unacceptability of the latter example has to do with the rections:

specific content. It is a familiar fact about the passive construction that you use it when the information about the agent is new (9)

a.

Dead leaves covered the ground.

to the discourse. In answer to a question like What happened to b.

The cock’s crow came with dawn.

Kennedy? it sounds very natural to say He was assassinated by

Oswald. But in response to a question like What did Oswald do
c.

Failing health compelled him to leave college;
to Kennedy? it would sound completely inept to say Kennedy
d.

She soon repented her words.

6

The jaw-dropping fact is that not a single one of the pairs in-

Interposing a phrase or clause, as in the lefthand exam-
volves the replacement of a passive by an active transitive. In the ples above, interrupts the flow of the main clause. This
second example the replacement verb is not transitive, and in the interruption, however, is not usually bothersome. . .

others the replaced sentence is not a passive. (Don’t be fooled Both of his sentences have supplements between subject and verb by impaired in (8c): become doesn’t allow passives — *A letter
phrase, violating the rule he presents. One can only speculate
became written by the bank is not grammatical.)

about whether he failed to notice, or noticed but thought they

It is possible that the words “some such perfunctory expres-
would get away with it, or noticed but simply didn’t care.

sion as there is, or could be heard” was supposed to broaden the topic beyond passives to some wider class of constructions. But there can be no excuse for talking about “substituting a transitive 4.3

Adjectives and adverbs
in the active voice” and giving an illustrative example that doesn’t White’s added chapter “An approach to style” offers a third case.

do it. It was White who introduced the example The cock’s crow

“Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs”,
came with dawn, and once again he made it clear that he is not to he says firmly (§4, p. 71). And then in the very next sentence
be trusted on syntax.

(which, incidentally, has a passive negative main clause, contrary Educated Americans continue to harbor a vague prejudice
to II.§14, “Use the active voice”, and II.§15, “Put statements in that the passive voice is bad or devious or unacceptable. Small positive form”), he says that a “weak or inaccurate noun” cannot wonder, with Strunk and White as their guide to grammar and
be pulled out of a “tight place” by an adjective — and uses three style. The mixture of dishonesty, obscurity, incompetence, and
adjectives to say it.

inconsistency that Elements offers must surely contribute to the The sentence after that admits that adjectives and adverbs “in-frequency of such blunders.

dispensable parts of speech”: indispensable indeed, since he has to say it with an adjective. And the sentence after that begins with 4.2

Togetherness and relatedness
an adverb.

Looking elsewhere, the first line of White’s introduction to

Strunk (1918) has a section (III.§16) headed “Keep related words the book has an attributive adjective and so does the fourth. The together” that begins thus:

first two chapters of the main part of the book both have titles that begin with an attributive adjective.

The position of the words in a sentence is the principal

And it was White who added a section in chapter II (§16)

means of showing their relationship. The writer must
headed ‘Use definite, specific, concrete language’ — three at-
therefore, so far as possible, bring together the words,
tributive adjectives in five words.

and groups of words, that are related in thought, and

And so it goes on. White’s own prose shows us that he doesn’t
keep apart those which are not so related.

take his own section heading seriously. A study of his own essay The subject of a sentence and the principal verb
writing elsewhere suggests that about 8% of the words he uses
should not, as a rule, be separated by a phrase or clause
are adjectives — higher than the usual figure for most prose of that can be transferred to the beginning.

roughly 6%.

How on earth can a book be taken seriously in its injunctions

Here Strunk is saying that the subject and the lexical (“principal”) when it tells the reader to write without adjectives and adverbs verb should be adjacent. And he says it with a sentence in which but says so in prose that is replete with them?

not just a modal (must) but also a connective adjunct (therefore) and a supplement (so far as possible) separates the subject (the 4.4

That and Which
writer) from the lexical verb (bring).

He continues with a sentence in which the subject and lexical

I offer one more example, and it strikes me as the worst. It
verb are separated not only by a modal (should), a negator (not), relates to the most famous of all time-wasting American copy-and the copula (for yes, he has once more used a passive), but
editor bugaboos. As Strunk & White (2000) state it, the claim also a parenthetically interpolated phrase (as a rule) that could is:

easily have been preposed.

That is the defining, or restrictive, pronoun, which the

He also separates a head noun (words) from the relative clause
nondefining, or nonrestrictive.

modifying it (that are related in thought) with a supplemental
and-coordinate (and groups of words).

This statement was introduced by White in 1959, and in factual

It is almost as if he had struggled to find prose that would
terms, it is quite wrong. The word that is not a relative pronoun illustrate the way he is telling us not to write! The text of the at all, and which has always been used to introduce restrictive section violates the rules in 27% of its sentences.4
relative clauses (as White is immediately forced to acknowledge, White’s revision expands and rewrites the section somewhat,
because he can hardly ignore the King James version of the Bible; but does not eliminate the self-refuting character. He suggests he quotes Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing that “Toni Morrison, in Beloved, writes about. . . ” should be
which is come to pass). He insists nonetheless that careful writ-changed to “In Beloved, Toni Morrison writes about. . . ” (Strunk ers “improve their work” by going “which-hunting” to get rid of

& White 2000, p. 29), and adds:

restrictive which.

4Heidi Harley noted this on Language Log (8 April 2008, http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4).

7

White is expounding a fictive rule that slowly emerged as a
wrongly persuaded that their grasp of their native tongue is im-recommended practice during the 19th century, and was set forth perfect and their writing is incorrect. No good purpose is served with full defence by H. W. and F. G. Fowler in The King’s En-by damaging people’s self-confidence in this way.

glish (1906, 88–93). The Fowlers admit that they are proposing

I am no defender of the species that White once scorn-
a reform: their rule is not drawn from practice. They also ac-
fully called “the modern liberal of the English Department, the knowledge that the rule would have to have several complex ex-anything-goes fellow” (Guth 2006, 416); I have no time for
ceptions, and concede: “It may seem to the reader that a rule with sloppy or ungrammatical writing. But I object to the time that is so many exceptions to it is not worth observing.” But the unten-wasted in trying to teach students falsehoods about English gram-ability of the rule is not my main focus here. My point concerns mar. And I think this is a linguistic issue of unusually large prac-blatant inconsistency — and possibly something worse than that, tical importance. Linguists should not be shy about condemning
dishonesty.

all the harm that this opinionated, influential, error-stuffed, time-White may have been unaware that his own writing ignored
wasting, unkillable zombie of a book has done.

the alleged rule. In his own novels, such as Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, White used restrictive which. There is an example on the first page of Stuart Little. Perhaps this is because White References
simply didn’t notice what his own practice was. However, he
certainly did notice Strunk’s practice.

Curme, George O. 1914. Origin and force of the split-infinitive.

The Fowlers’ rule had not been mentioned in Strunk (1918).

Modern Language Notes 29(2):41–45.

White not only added it; he did something else as well. As Jan

Curme, George O. 1930. Syntax. Boston: D. C. Heath. Volume

Freeman noted (2008), White rewrote Strunk’s prose to elimi-

III of A Grammar of the English Language.

nate all the telltale cases of restrictive relative which. There were Follett, Wilson. 1966. Modern American Usage: A Guide. New
quite a few. Strunk wrote “if the favor which you have requested York: Hill & Wang.

is granted” in the paragraph immediately before where White in-

Fowler, H. W. and F. G. Fowler. 1906. The King’s English. Ox-
serted the section on the which prohibition, and White rewrote
ford: Clarendon Press.

that sentence completely; Strunk wrote “keep apart those which

Freeman, Jan. 2005.

Frankenstrunk.

Boston Sunday Globe,
are not related” (in the section “Keep related words together”), 23 October (online at http://www.boston.com/news/globe/
and White changed it to “keep apart those that are not related”; ideas/articles/2005/10/23/frankenstrunk).

and so on.

Freeman,

Jan.

2008.

Return
of
the
living
dead.

White altered the sentences in the original book to avoid re-

Boston

Sunday

Globe,

6

September

(online
at
vealing that his mentor had never followed any rule banning re-
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/theword/
strictive which. This looks like deliberate concealment of evi-

2008/09/return of the l.html).

dence.

Garvey, Mark. 2009. Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of

To sum up, White peddles a prohibition that originates in a

Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. New York: Touch-
quixotic 19th-century recommendation for reform that failed. It stone/Simon & Schuster.

is not respected in his own writing, and his mentor Strunk did not Guth, Dorothy Lobrano, ed. 2006. Letters of E. B. White. New
conform to it. But to make it look plausible he silently altered York: Harper.

Strunk’s original text. I see no way to regard this as anything but Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cam-outright duplicity.

bridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.

Merriam-Webster. 1994. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of En-

5

Conclusion
glish Usage. Springfield, CT: Merriam-Webster. Edited by E.

Ward Gilman.

There is more to be said against The Elements of Style — much

Merriam-Webster. 2002. Merriam-Webster’s Concise Dictionary
more than I have space for. All I hope to have done here is to
of English Usage. Springfield, CT: Merriam-Webster. Edited
begin to flesh out my judgment that Elements is a hopeless guide by E. Ward Gilman.

to English usage and has been deleterious to grammar education

Strunk, William. 1918. The Elements of Style. Privately printed in America.

in Geneva, NY, at the Press of W. F. Humphrey. Quotations are

I do not think the issue is trivial. The Elements of Style does from the online version of the text (http://www.bartleby.com/
real and permanent harm. It encourages the waste of precious

141).

resources — time spent by teachers, students, and copy editors; Strunk, William. 1920. The Elements of Style. New York: Har-money spent by English departments and publishers. Genuine
court, Brace and Howe. First commercially published edition.

faults in writing go neglected because time is spent on nonsense Strunk, William and E. B. White. 2000. The Elements of Style.

like which-hunting. And worse than that, sensible adults are

New York: Allyn and Bacon, 4th ed.

8