Strunk and White: First Impressions

Elements of Style is an excellent handbook if you're looking for technical information on the proper grammar of commas, semicolons, and other prescriptive rules on English writing style. This book is not a good reference to descriptive grammar and the constant evolution of language through writing.

The book presents itself very precisely and has many suggestions for rephrasing common mistakes and misuses of idioms. It takes a discriminatory opinion on certain changes to the grammar such as "flammable" and "inflammable". The authors write "Unless you are operating such a a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable." Some of the more common practices in writing are condemned by the authors.

At the same time the handbook uses some of the new styles as examples in what not to do and in the explanation after. He has a very comical style when he addresses the grammar in this way and I think it's an effective way to demonstrate a possible use of an irregular style.

The last few paragraphs offer important insight to the purpose of writing. "Your whole duty as a writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one." I believe in this completely with few exceptions. I don't agree with the hard rules Strunk puts forward, but I can respect that he sees some elements necessary for variety and why the hard rules should form the foundation of the grammar.