Sweven answers “Im thinking of reading this book, is it...”

Rebecka asked this question about The Elements of Style:

Im thinking of reading this book, is it worth the time or should I look for another book on grammar ?

Sweven This book is not worth anyone's time. Strunk and White were not linguists, they were hypocritical, snobby, uninformed pedants. This book is as likely …moreThis book is not worth anyone's time. Strunk and White were not linguists, they were hypocritical, snobby, uninformed pedants. This book is as likely to harm your writing as help it. I love Geoffrey K Pullum's critique (http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/Land...) of a few of S&W's many problems. This is not a good style guide; it is a collection of the quirks by prejudiced but mistaken writers. And yet, S&W's dogma is everywhere. Maybe because the rules the book invented allow people to feel superior, even if they're not actually true of the English language.

If you're a native speaker, you already have good "grammar", and if you want to improve your writing, write more. If you want a better style guide, I'm reading Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style, and it seems pretty decent. (less)

flag