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x ] F O R E W O R D It was this recurring question, put to himself, that must have inspired White to revive and add to a textbook by an English professor of his, Will Strunk Jr., that he had first read in college, and to get it published. The result, this quiet book, has been in print for forty years, and has offered more than ten million writers a helping hand. White knew that a compendium of specific tips—about singular and plural verbs, parentheses, the "that"-"which" scuffle, and many others—could clear up a recalcitrant sentence or subclause when quickly reconsulted, and that the larger principles needed to be kept in plain sight, like a wall sampler. How simple they look, set down here in White's last chapter: "Write in a way that comes naturally," "Revise and rewrite," "Do not explain too much," and the rest; above all, the cleansing, clarion "Be clear." How often I have turned to them, in the book or in my mind, while trying to start or unblock or revise some piece of my own writing! They help—they really do. They work. They are the way. E. B. White's prose is celebrated for its ease and clarity— just think of Charlotte's Web—but maintaining this stan dard required endless attention. When the new issue of The New Yorker turned up in Maine, I sometimes saw him reading his "Comment" piece over to himself, with only a slightly different expression than the one he'd worn on the day it went off. Well, O.K., he seemed to be saying. At least I got the elements right. This edition has been modestly updated, with word pro cessors and air conditioners making their first appearance among White's references, and with a light redistribution of genders to permit a feminine pronoun or female farmer to take their places among the males who once innocently served him. Sylvia Plath has knocked Keats out of the box, and I notice that "America" has become "this country" in a sample text, to forestall a subsequent and possibly demean ing "she" in the same paragraph. What is not here is anything about E-mail—the rules-free, lower-case flow that cheer fully keeps us in touch these days. E-mail is conversation,
FOREWORD [xi and it may be replacing the sweet and endless talking we once sustained (and tucked away) within the informal letter. But we are all writers and readers as well as communicators, with the need at times to please and satisfy ourselves (as White put it) with the clear and almost perfect thought.
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Glossary adjectival modifier A word
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G L O S S A R Y [ 9 1 conjunction A
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GLOSSARY [93 object The noun or pro
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G L O S S A R Y [ 9 5 subordinate c
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98] T H E E L E M E N T S O F S T Y
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100] T H E E L E M E N T S O F S T
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1 0 2 ] T H E E L E M E N T S O F S
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1 0 4 ] T H E E L E M E N T S O F S
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REFERENCE $7.95 Strunk and white Th
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