Strunk and White

I sometimes think putting Strunk's name first was less authorial modesty than a keen eye for the eye-catching name. Strunk sounds like the name of an old ballplayer: "Tinker to Evers to Strunk." "Strunk lines left; Robinson holds third." Strunk and White's little handbook is fifty this month.

Not everyone reveres Strunk and White's classic grammar, but most people set it on a shelf between the Bible and Catcher in the Rye. Holy writ, in other words.

Most picture E. B. White as a shy, avuncular ma