The Elements of Style is both dated and largely self-contradictory. Vonnegut judged his own work by slightly different metrics:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
‘So I won't be spending the month of April toasting 50 years of the overopinionated and underinformed little book that put so many people in this unhappy state of grammatical angst. I've spent too much of my scholarly life studying English grammar in a serious way. English syntax is a deep and interesting subject. It is much too important to be reduced to a bunch of trivial don't-do-this prescriptions by a pair of idiosyncratic bumblers who can't even tell when they've broken their own misbegotten rules.’
Might be a decent guide for the utter beginner, but if you're trying to learn to write with style, rather than simply to write comprehensibly, it's more important to know all of the many, many times you can and probably should break the rules in The Elements of Style.
I don't know what the OP meant, but I remember reading it and noting that the section on not using the passive voice used the passive voice. There were probably more things like that.
Unrelated, but in general I think the advice of Nassim Taleb is good: most people looking to improve their writing style are really lacking something to say.
Especially in the workplace, you have plenty to say. It may not progress humankind, but you definitely need to say it. You may be discussing a design decision, announcing a promotion, negotiating a contract, etc. In these cases, one might get better at writing and say the same thing more effectively.
This is where a person would need practical advice to improve his writing style. I've run into plenty of people in professional settings who would be more effective in their jobs if they could write better. They often don't realize it themselves until a colleague suggests revisions.
I read Strunk & White at some point. It has its contradictions, sure, but much of its advice is good if you treat it as advice, and not a rulebook. For example, you might occasionally need the use the passive voice, but it's very good advice to strongly prefer the active voice and to use the passive only when you really need to. Some people really do have a problem using way too many passive verbs, but few realize it until they try writing with active verbs.
> I don't know what the OP meant, but I remember reading it and noting that the section on not using the passive voice used the passive voice. There were probably more things like that.
Are you sure that wasn't a joke? I recall that the writers often would cleverly break their 'rules' to make them examples of what to avoid.
Elements of Style is an excellent place to start. Yes, the academics and pros will debate its advice, as they do any "authority" (same thing with William Zinsser, author of "On Writing Well," who passed away recently), but for people who come from a non-writing background it provides a succinct and clear starting guide. As your skills improve so can your rules change.
As a side note I found the formatting, or lack of formatting, interesting. It felt very much like a document, or a piece of paper, than a web page. That surprised me.
I remember reading this in an advert for International Paper when it first came out. It's absolutely wonderful, and one of the most readable things I've ever seen from Vonnegut.
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.