How to Avoid Creeping Solecism

...The recommendation would have had more effect, perhaps, had it not taken the form of a 6,000-word report...

...Although all Strunk's warnings were first published in 1918, it is increasingly apparent that verbosity is once again becoming a serious international problem...

...A cracker-jack writer, he implies, need not feel boxed-in by brevity...

...If every word or device that achieved currency were immediately authenticated," said Strunk, "simply on the ground of popularity, the language would be as chaotic as a ball game with no foul lines...

...Such, unfortunately, is the case with America's present Chief Executive...

...This usage has gained considerable favor among television fans because of the advertisement which extolls a cigarette that "tastes good, like a cigarette should...

...we notice them more in our politicians only because their profession demands that they speak often, just as most other professions demand that their spokesmen say something when they speak...

...A candidate who diligently pursues its five meaty chapters will find that it can greatly improve his oral and written expressiveness...

...The "little book" is William Strunk's plea for clear, accurate and concise English usage...

...Only last year, a special United Nations committee recommended that all UN departments cut down on their printed verbiage...

...Eisenhower has a way of easing virtually every subject he touches into a syntactical jungle in which every ray of light, every breath of air, is choked out...

...but when poorly expressed thoughts and inane sentences, uttered by a Chief Executive, take away the listeners' breath, then a lesson on grammar seems like a downright necessity...

...While he is not so outspokenly ecstatic about it as was Shakespeare, there is little question that he believes it to be an aid to rhetoric...

...Let's hope that if the President's grandchildren ever do hear Khrushchev's bumptious boasting about Communism, they will be better able to counter his thrusts than was their grandfather when he admitted he was "very hard put to it" to defend the capitalistic system against Marshal Georgi Zhukov's "idealistic" Communism, Indeed, in reading the verbatim account of that repartee, one is forced to conclude that Eisenhower was not only "very hard put to it" but was, instead, wholly inadequate...

...It is a lightly guarded national secret," wrote one observer, "that Mr...

...Interspersed throughout the book are Strunk's admonitions for those who would flagrantly violate the King's English...

...One can almost agree with Emily Dickinson that "when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence...

...When asked whether Khrushchev told Ike's grandchildren that one day they might live under Communism, the President wittily retorted: "Well, I don't think—no, I know he didn't, but they, I think one of them might have thought he's old enough to know what he might have been saying, but he didn't, no, as a matter of fact, on the contrary, this was the kind of heartwarming family scene that any American would like to see taking place between his grandchildren and a stranger...

...Though he is no purist (that is, he does not believe the road to Hell is paved only with bad declensions), there are a few violations which make his academic blood boil...

...One of these is the use of "like" as a conjunction, instead of as a preposition...

...Reviewed by Edwin McDowell WITH THE 1960 Presidential campaign lurking just around the corner, waiting for the opportunity to drug its defenseless victims under an endless shower of logorrhea, I can offer no more beneficial advice to the candidates than that they "get the little book...

...To those defenders who argue that any usage that achieves currency becomes valid automatically, Strunk retorts that expressions sometimes merely enjoy a vogue, much as an article of apparel does...

...But there is no question that The Elements of Style can help the reader overcome these errors, and that is why I heartily recommend it as a must for all 1960 Presidential nominees...

...This perspicuous observation was corroborated at a recent press conference, called by the President for the purpose of explaining official Washington reaction to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States, Replying to a question as to whether he and Khrushchev spoke of China, Ike carefully explained: "Now, he did, because of course, our concern about prisoners and so on, suggest that he might find it possible as a friendly gesture, not because he has, feels he has any right to interfere in those things, to bring up the matter of our five prisoners we've been so concerned about...

...Professor Strunk, late instructor of English at Cornell University, presents a cogent defense for brevity...

...Creeping solecisms are not—alas!—confined to any one sector of the public...

...As one wag pointed out, that slogan is certain to corrupt school children faster than the very nicotine which it so continuously praises...

...indeed, it is his forte...

...On the other hand, a candidate who does not care about English improvement will have to content himself with becoming President...