2. Write in a way that comes naturally.

Write in a way that comes easily and naturally to you, using words
and phrases that come readily to hand. But do not assume that because
you have acted naturally your product is without flaw.
The use of language begins with imitation. The infant imitates the
sounds made by its parents: the child imitates first the spoken lan-
guage, then the stuff of books. The imitative life continues long after
the writer is secure in the language, for it is almost impossible to avoid
imitating what one admires. Never imitate consciously, but do not
worry about being an imitator; take pains instead to admire what is
good. Then when you write in a way that comes naturally, you will echo
the halloos that bear repeating.

3. Work from a suitable design.

Before beginning to compose something, gauge the nature and
extent of the enterprise and work from a suitable design. (See Chapter
II, Rule 12.) Design informs even the simplest structure, whether of
brick and steel or of prose. You raise a pup tent from one sort of vision,
a cathedral from another. This does not mean that you must sit with a
blueprint always in front of you, merely that you had best anticipate
what you are getting into. To compose a laundry list, you can work
directly from the pile of soiled garments, ticking them off one by one.
But to write a biography, you will need at least a rough scheme; you
cannot plunge in blindly and start ticking off fact after fact about your
subject, lest you miss the forest for the trees and there be no end to
your labors.
Sometimes, of course, impulse and emotion are more compelling
than design. If you are deeply troubled and are composing a letter
appealing for mercy or for love, you had best not attempt to organize
your emotions; the prose will have a better chance if the emotions are
left in disarray-which you'll probably have to do anyway, since feel -
ings do not usually lend themselves to rearrangement. But even the
kind of writing that is essentially adventurous and impetuous will on
examination be found to have a secret plan: Columbus didn't just sail,
he sailed west, and the New World took shape from this simple and,
we now think, sensible design.

10] I A N APPHOACH TO ST Y L E
 4. Write with nouns and verbs.
Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectiv es and ad verbs. The
adjective ha sn 't been built that ca n pull a weak or ina ccurate noun out
of a tight place. Thi s is not to disparage adj ectiv es and ad verbs; they ar e
indisp ensable parts of speech. Occa sionally they surprise us with thei r
power, as In
Up the airy mountain ,
Down the rushy glen,
We da ren' t go a-hunting
For fear of littl e men . . .

The noun s moun tain and glen are acc urate enough, but had the mountain
not become airy, th e gle n ru sh y, William Allingham might never ha ve
got off the ground with his poem . In gene ral, however, it is noun s and
verbs , not th eir assistants, that give good writing its toughn ess and
color.

5. Revise and rewrite.

Revisin g is part of writin g. Few writer s are so expe rt that they can
produ ce what they are after on the first try. Quite often you will discover,
on exa mining the co mple ted work, that there are se rious flaws in the
arran gem ent of the materi al , ca lling for tran spo sitions. When this is the
case, a word processor ca n save you time and lab or on your sc ree n a nd
move it to a more appropri ate spot, or, if you cannot find the right spot,
you ca n move the mat eri al to the e nd of the manuscript until you decid e
whe the r to de le te it. Some writers find that working with a printed copy
of the manu scri pt helps them to visualize the process of cha nge; othe rs
prefer to rev ise entirely on screen. Above all, do not be afraid to exper-
iment with wha t you have writte n. Save both the original a nd the re vised
vers ions; you ca n always use the computer to restore the manu script to
its origina l condition, should that course see m best. Rem emb er, it is no
s ign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of
major surgery. Thi s is a common occ urre nce in all writin g, and among
the best writers.

6. Do not overwrite.
Rich , ornate prose is hard to di gest , gene rally unwh olesome, and
so metimes nau seating. If the sic kly-s wee t word, the overblown phrase

l OS I AN AI' PI\OAC H T O STY LI-:

ar e your natural form of expression, as is sometimes the case, you will
ha ve to compe nsate for it by a show of vigor, and by writing some thing
as meritorious as the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's .
Wh en writing with a compute r, you mu st guard aga ins t wordiness.
Th e cli ck and flow of a word pro cessor ca n be seductiv e, and you may
find yourself adding a few unnecessa ry word s or eve n a whole passage
just to expe rience the pleasure of running your fin ge rs over the key-
board a nd watchi ng your words appea r on the sc reen. It is always a good
id ea to rer ead your writing lat er a nd ruthl essl y del et e the excess.

7. Do not overstate.
Wh en you oversta te, reade rs will be instantly on guard, and eve ry-
thing that has preced ed your overs tate me nt as well as everything that
follows it will be suspec t in their mind s becau se they have lost confide nce
in your judgment or your poise. Overst at ement is one of the common
fault s. A single overstatement , wherever or however it occurs, diminish es
the whole, and a single ca refree superlative has the power to destroy, for
reader s, the obj ect of your e nthus ias m.

8. Avoid tile use of qualifiers.

Rath er, very, littl e, pretty-th ese are the leech es that infest the pond
of prose, suc king the blood of words. Th e cons ta nt use of the adj ecti ve
little (except to indica te size) is parti cul arl y debilitating; we should all
try to do a littl e beLLer, we should all be ver y watchful of thi s rul e, for it
is a rather imp ortant one, and we are pr ett y sure to violate it now and
then.

9. Do not affect a breezy manner.

Th e volume of writing is e normous, these da ys, a nd much of it has a
sort of windiness about it, alm ost as thou gh the author were in a state of
euphoria. "S pontane ous me," sa ng Whitman , and , in his inno cen ce, let
loose the hordes of uninsp ired scribble rs who would one day confuse
sponta ne ity with genius .
Th e breezy style is ofte n the work of an egoce ntric, the person who
imagin es that e verything that comes to mind is of gene ral int er est an d
that uninhibited pros e creates high spirits and carries the day. Op en
an y alumni magazine, turn to the cl ass notes, and you ar e quite lik ely

"Spontaneous me," sang Whitman.

to enc ounter old Sponta ne ous Me at work-an ag lllg collegian who
writ es some thing lik e thi s:
Well , guys, here I am agai n dishing the dirt about your disorderl y
classmates, after pa$$ing a weekend in the Big Apple tryin g to catc h
the Columbia hoops tilt and then a cab-r ide from hell th rough the
West Side cas bah. And spe aking of news, howzabout tossing a few
primo items thi s way?

Thi s is an extre me exa mple , but the sa me wind blows, at lesser velocities,
across vas t expa nses of journalisti c prose. Th e author in thi s case has
man aged in two se nte nces to commit most of the unpardonabl e sins: he
obvious ly has nothing to say, he is showing off and directing the atte n-
tion of the read er to him self, he is using slang with neither provo ca tion
nor ingenuity, he adopts a patronizing air by throwing in the word prime,
he is hum orless (though full of fun), dull, and empty. He has not done
his work . Compa re his opening remarks with the following-a plunge
directl y into the news:
Clyde Crawford , who stroke d the varsit y shell in 1958, is swinging
an oa r aga in after a lap se of forty years. Clyde resigned last s pring as
executive sales man ager of the Indi ana Flotex Compa ny and is now a
gondolie r in Venice .

Th is, although conve ntional, is compact, informative, unpretentious.

Th e wr iter has du g up an item of news and present ed it in a stra ightfor-
ward manner. Wha t the first writer tried to accomplish by cutting
rh etorical ca pe rs a nd by br eezin ess, the second write r managed to
ac hieve by good report in g, by keepin g a tight rein on his materi al , and
by stay ing out of the act.

10. Use orthodox spelling.

In ordinary compos ition, use orthodox sp elling. Do not write nile for
night, thru for through, pleez for please, unl ess you plan to introduce a
co mple te sys te m of simplified spe lli ng and ar e pr epared to tak e the
co nse q ue nces.
In the origina l edition of The Elements of Style, there was a chapter
on spell ing. In it, the a uthor had this to sa y:
The spelling of English words is not fixed and invariable, nor does
it depend on any other authority than general agreement. At the present

Th e E l em ent s 0/ S ty le / 10 8
 day there is practically unanimous agreeme nt as to the spelling of
most words.. .. At any given moment, however, a relat ively small
number of words may be spelled in more than one way. Gradually,
as a rule, one of these forms comes to be generally preferred, and the
less customary form comes to look obsolete and is discarded. From
time to time new forms, mostly simplifications, are introduced by
innovators, and either win their place or die of neglect.
Th e pra cti cal objecti on to una ccept ed and oversimplified
s pell ings is the di sfa vor with which they are received by the
read er. Th ey di stract his atte ntion and ex haust his patien ce.
He rea ds the form though automatically, without thought of its
needl ess comp lexity; he reads the abbrev iation tho and ment all y
supplies the missing lett ers, at the cos t of a fracti on of his
attention. The writer has defeated his own purpo se.

Th e lan gu age manages some how to keep pace with eve nts . A word
that has tak en hold in our century is thruway ; it was born of necess ity
and is a ppare ntly here to s tay. In combina tion with way, thru. is more
serviceabl e than through ; it is a high- sp eed word for readers who are
going s ixty-five. Throughway would be too long to fit on a road sign, too
s low to se rve the s peed ing eye . It is co nce iva ble that becau se of our
thru ways, through will eventua lly become thru- aft er man y more thou -
sa nds of mil es of tra vel.

II. Do not e xp la in too milch.

It is se ldo m ad visabl e to tell all. Be s pa ring, for inst an ce, in the use
of ad verbs aft er " he sa id," "s he re pl ied," and the lik e: " he said consol-
ingly" ; "she repli ed grumblingly." Let the conversa tion itse lf di scl ose
the s pe ake r's manner or condition. D ialo gu e heavil y wei ght ed with
adve rb s a fte r th e attributi ve verb is cl u tlery a nd a n noy ing .
Inexp eri en ced wr ite rs not onl y overwork thei r ad verbs but load their
a tt rib utes with ex pla na tory ver bs : " he consoled," "she co ngra tula ted."
Th ey do thi s, a ppare ntly, in the beli ef that the word sai d is always in
need of s u pport, or becau se they have bee n told to do it by ex pe rts in
th e art of bad writing.

12. Do not construct awkward adverbs.

Adv erbs are eas y to build . 'lake an adjective or a participle, add -ly,
and behold! you hav e an adverb. But you' d probably be bett er off witho u t

10 ') I AN APPIIOACII TO S T Y LE
it. Do not write tangledly. Th e word itself is a tangle. Do not even write
tiredly . Nobody says tangledly and not man y people say tiredly. Words
that are not used orally are se ldom the ones to put on paper.
He cl imbed tiredl y to bed. He climbed weari ly to
bed.
The lamp cord lay tan - The lamp cord lay in tan -
gledly ben eath her chair. gles ben eath her cha ir.

Do not dress words up by add ing -ly to them, as though pu tting a hat on
a horse.
overly over
muchl y much
thu sly thu s

13. Make sure the reader knows who is speaking.

Dialo gue is a total loss unl ess you indi cate who the spea ker is. In
long di alogue pa ssages containing no attrib utives , the read er may
become lost a nd be compelled to go back and rer ead in ord er to puzzl e
the thin g out. Obscurity is an imp osition on the reader, to say nothing
of its dam age to the work .
In dia logue, mak e sure that your a ttributives do not awkward ly int er -
rupt a spoke n se ntence. Pl ace them wher e the break would come natu -
rall y in s peec h- tha t is, whe re the s peake r would pau se [or emphas is,
or tak e a breath. Th e best test [or locating an attri butive is to spea k the
se nte nce aloud.
"N ow, my boy, we sha ll "N ow, my boy," he said,
see ," he sa id, "how well you "we shall see how well you
have learned your lesson." have learn ed your lesson."
" What's more, they would "W hat's more," she ad ded,
never," she added, "c onse nt to " they would never conse nt to
the plan." the plan. "

14. Avoid fancy words .

Avoid the ela borate, the pretenti ous, the coy, an d the cute. Do not be
tempted by a twenty-dollar word when ther e is a ten-cen ter hand y,

III I A N A P P R O A C H TO S T Y L E