Strunk and White: First Impressions

I must say this book was quite the read. I spent a few hours of my morning reading through this book and it delighted me when I was able to relate to many of Strunk and White's different "elements of style". However there were of course some style rules that I felt deserved a second glance and could go either way.

Of all the chapters in this book, I must say I loved chapter four. This chapter highlighted many of the commonly misused words and expressions. I especially took to the rule for "being". Here Strunk and White mention that the word "being is not appropriate after the phrase, "regard.....as". To showcase this error they introduce this sentence: "He is regarded as being the best dancer in the club." While this may sound correct to most readers, the word "being" actually interrupts this sentences flow. Strunk and White suggest removing "being", in which the sentence now reads: "He is regarded as the best dancer in the club." I for one notice a drastic change in the flow and clarity of this sentence after the removal of "being"; a correction that should be made more often. (41).

As for any rules that I may have felt were dated or misused, I felt comfortable knowing that many of these stylistic rules are still utilized by teachers to this day while editing papers. The only outstanding issue I had with any of Strunk and White's rules(which mind you is really only a small gripe) was there stance on exclamation usage. I believe that even the simplest phrases deserve an exclamation point as long as they are showing prominent excitement, whereas Strunk and White believed that exclamation punctuations should be used after true exclamations or commands (35). Here's a thought.....How do you define what is a "true" exclamation or command? What if someone just is full of emotion or says something which more urgency? Phrases like , "Well I forgot to do my homework", may seem very subtle to most speakers, but how do they know someone might be saying this in urgency, but yet not shouting? To me this rule is shady because you cannot define a "true" point of exclamation or command. I think that this rule, is long overdue for a make-over.