For language lovers, two anniversaries worth noting
Journalists love anniversaries; they provide a flimsy but convenient excuse for writing about things we find interesting.
This week marks two important anniversaries for people who love good writing.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Elements of Style, my favorite guide to good writing.
E.B. White, best known for his children’s book Charlotte’s Web, updated a writing manual used by his Cornell University professor, William Strunk. With simple commandments — Be clear. Omit needless words. — the book is a beacon in a world of blather. National Public Radio has a piece about the book that’s worth hearing.
Reviewing The Elements of Style for Esquire magazine in 1959, Dorothy Parker wrote this piece of classic Dorothy Parker wit: “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”
White’s essays for The New Yorker remain classics. Two of my favorites are Here is New York, which captures the energy of the 1940s city, and The World of Tomorrow, which describes the New York World’s Fair of 1939 and man’s hubris.
Monday marked the 100th birthday of the late Eudora Welty, the Mississippi author and photographer.
Her novel The Optimist’s Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize. Her many stories, such as The Petrified Man and Why I live at the P.O., are great studies in human nature and Southern culture.
White and Welty were great literary stylists. Strunk would have been proud of them both.
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April 16th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I love Strunk and White. My personal reading is lacking in Welty, sadly.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I have to disagree about Strunk and White. There’s a great commentary on it this week from the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i32/32b01501.htm (Title: “50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice”)