Blog Your Blessings: 'Elements of Style'

I could hear myself sounding like I was in love with these men. I urged them to read their book, to follow their style, to trust everything they wrote. To believe they could change their lives forever by teaching them to write well.

I went on and on.

About E.B. White and the tiny masterpiece that bears his name alongside William Strunk's.

I was daring the kids I tutor for the SATs to get a copy of Elements of Style and trust it like they could never trust a living English teacher to teach them the basic rules of grammar, usage, style.

Strunk wrote the thing in 1919 to create a basic style sheet from which his students at Cornell University could learn to write clearly and therefore effectively. In 1957, White prepared this little book for publication by MacMillan. In his introduction, White lists the contents: "Seven rules of usage, eleven principles of composition, a few matters of form, and a list of words and expressions commonly misused--that was the sum and substance of Professor Strunk's work. Somewhat audaciously,...I added a chapter called 'An Approach to Style,' setting forth my own prejudices, my notions of error, my articles of faith [for those who] feel that English prose composition is not only a necessary skill but a sensible pursuit as well--a way to spend one's days."

Simple, short, sweet--and so unlike those dreadfully heavy books full of rules, exceptions, examples, exercises that boggle the mind until it feels hopeless.

I got away with this homily on usage on Thursday because I had endured a gruelling hour and a half of my students' grilling me on the various laws of grammar as we waded through the dreary practice SAT questions. To endure this inquisition, I kept my eye on the prize: the beauty and grace--call it power--of our best thoughts distilled into the finest words in the cleanest sentences we can imagine. It's about finding your best self and being that person.

Talk of Elements always brings me back to my sophomore year of high school, when Mr. Charles Phelps would hand out these little paperback books so that we could copy the rules into our notes and then practice them until we mastered them. Like the book, he made it manageable and easy, and this fact set him apart from all the confusing old ladies and their exquisite script and all their arrows, circles, and underlines that left me in a fit of despair on a daily basis in the years up to Mr. Phelps.

Mr. Phelps cracked the code for me at a critical time for me. My sophomore year was also the worst year of my life. That was the year my beloved grandmother succumbed to cancer after a painful struggle with the disease. I remember feeling my sorrow very deeply as she lay in her hospital bed. To alleviate my grief, I tried to write an essay to my gram. I did not. I finished the thing and then wrote "Dear Gram" at the top. My parents read it to her in her hospital bed. On the last occasion I saw that wonderful lady, she told me it was the most beautiful letter she had ever received.

Since that moment so many years ago, I have contemplated the difference between writing for oneself and writing for an audience, even an audience of one. There must always be someone else for whom we write. I believe it. If we don't have that person, we must find him or her. And we must say it the best way we can. We must. Read the book.

It all comes down to subject, verb, object: I love you.

Thank you Messrs. Strunk, White, and Phelps.

Blog Your Blessings