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A song about Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style"

Let’s take it back to 1918, at a University in Ithaca, New York: Cornell--you bet that’s Ivy League. 

There was a prof. who was fed up with his students writing lines that were boring and unclear, so he said, “I’ll change their minds.

My name is William Strunk Jr., and I know a thing two about the art of composition, and I’m fly, too.”

So he wrote his magnum opus, “The Elements of Style.”  It was an instant hit, he didn’t have to wait a while


For it to become the true Bible of the teachers and the writers, making English language tighter and their usage so much righter.  

Well this Strunk guy had a student.  His name was E.B. White.  Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little.  That’s the guy, alright.

But well before E.B. became easily the greatest of all time at making me feel empathy for spiders of all kinds,

He loved that little book of Strunk’s, and thought it was so fine.  He edited it; put his name on it in 1959.

 

These are the elements of style.

You better use them while

You’re writing--yeah they’re basic,

But you’re basic too, Kyle.


You need a little help with words--

That jersey is absurd.

An oxford shirt and some grammar hurt

Not a bit--I hope ya heard.  


Get some style, Kyle  


Let’s begin with a thing that is tiny, but then, it can mend you meaning and prevent confusion: in a series, a list (that’s a string of items), you put commas between them--the two at the end.

This of course we all know as the Oxford Comma--sartorial and grammatical convergence--no drama.

If you put a comma between two independent clauses, and expect me to full stop, I’ll only breath and pause and

Scream, “This is a comma splice, basic as pumpkin spice lattes, and I’m not a grammar nazi, but it’s nice


To know when and where you’re done saying what you have got to say, so use a period or semicolon, please.  Okay? 

The inverse of this advice is additionally true.  Don’t use a period to split a sentence into two.

And please recall the number of the subject and the verb must agree, and be syntactically parallel and undisturbed

By a difference in a singular or plural assignation.  Am I losing you with my lyrics and my concatenation?


These are the elements of style.

You better use them while

You’re writing--yeah they’re basic,

But you’re basic too, Kyle.


You need a little help with words--

That jersey is absurd.

An oxford shirt and some grammar hurt

Not a bit--I hope ya heard.


Your participle’s dangling, and the language you are mangling while your verbiage needs some wrangling  and your syntax disentangling 

You think a pair of roshes apropos for formal dress, please tell me, bro, why aren’t you wearing oxfords?  Yo, I can’t resist, man--what are those?

The way you write, the way you dress, it needs some work, I must confess.  I know I am prescriptive, yes.  Be more descriptive? You’re a mess.

But don’t look so disconsolate, there’s still some hope for you  just get a copy of this book and set yourself to the task of reading it. 


You can get some style, Kyle 


The voice of all your writing should be phrased using the active.  That means the subject’s doing stuff and not just being passive.

And your structure must be parallel, which geometrically means parts of your sentence should look like other parts, you see?

If you’re writing about something that has happened in the past, WYD shifting tense and giving me whiplash--

And finally omit those words that aren’t pulling their weight--they might be fancy, so articulate, but don’t make writing great. 


Brevity, Kyle, is the soul of wit, and that’s why I’m finished with this.