Strunk and White have been dissed.
50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice
I propose a cage match.
I followed the link and read most of the article. I haven’t read the book, but if the article is factually correct then it makes some valid points.
I am responsible for training or encouraging work colleagues to write clearly, and I always advise them to avoid the passive voice. However, they are writing factual and technical letters where accuracy is more important than style.
In a piece of creative writing, the rules are there to be followed or broken according to the needs of the effect you wish to achieve. I think it’s important to know and understand the rules rather than breaking them through ignorance or lack of care. P. G. Wodehouse may have been one of the greatest stylists in the English language, and he knew when to obey the rules; when to break them; and when to make a point of obeying them to produce an absurd effect.
Unfortunately, most people do not write carefully or creatively, so the pragmatic teacher will emphasise “absolute” rules in the hope of causing some improvement.
I have had several arguments with colleagues because I had deliberately chosen not to obey one of the “black and white” rules that they were given at school. It is always a waste of time trying to explain the limitations of the simplistic rules they can remember from their school days.
At such time as fish & chips has been eaten in such quantities by Americans as the Big Mac by Brits, such matters won’t appear as significant to a bitter academic in a failed empire. The vitriol hurled by the author suggests more is at issue than mere grammar.
“Mere grammar”? Is this some obscure branch of hydrogeology?
If the cage match was in a library cubicle, would the librarian still sush those who were too loud?
What about weapons?
A rubber stamp to the forehead is going to leave a mark.
Or, will this be taken well by Miss Ayelery?