Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style

by Benjamin Dreyer

Go a week without writing very rather really quite in fact And you can toss in—or, that is, toss out—“just” (not in the sense of “righteous” but in the sense of “merely”) and “so” (in the “extremely” sense, though as conjunctions go it’s pretty disposable too). Oh yes: “pretty.” As in “pretty tedious.” Or “pretty pedantic.” Go ahead and kill that particular darling. And “of course.” That’s right out. And “surely.” And “that said.” And “actually”? Feel free to go the rest of your life without another “actually.”*1

If you can append “by zombies” to the end of a sentence (or, yes, “by the clown”), you’ve indeed written a sentence in the passive voice.

Only godless savages eschew the series comma.

The “only” comma rule is also helpful in differentiating between “that” and “which,” if differentiating between “that” and “which” is your bag. If you’re about to offer a piece of information that’s crucial to your sentence, offer it up without a comma and with a “that”: Please fetch me the Bible that’s on the table.

If what follows a colon is a full sentence, begin that full sentence with a capital letter, which signals to your reader: What’s about to commence includes a subject, a verb, the works, and should be read as such.

One too many coy asides and you, in the person of your writing, will seem like a dandy in a Restoration comedy stepping down to the footlights and curling his hand around his mouth to confidentially address the audience.