I do NOT agree. Of course, TEoS was written almost a hundred years ago, for an audience whose general level of education was significantly higher than it is for students of the same age now. That it has been repeatedly updated, sometimes idiotically (illustrations? puh-leeeze) doesn't help a lot because the updates are additions, not corrections. It remains my go-to style manual since I first encountered the second edition 46 years ago. I only know of one other as good, and its author was unable to get it published...because it wasn't long enough. It didn't contain the verbose padding and repetition that makes late-20th- and 21st-century style handbooks really profitable. Not GOOD...just profitable.
"...for an audience whose general level of education was significantly higher than it is for students of the same age now."
I don't think you mean this as it reads. The general level of education in the 1920s was about 8-9 years of schooling; now, it's nearly 14 (for people age 25 & over, in both cases). If you mean that the *rigor* of that education was greater, we could have a conversation (and I might still disagree).
4 comments:
I do NOT agree. Of course, TEoS was written almost a hundred years ago, for an audience whose general level of education was significantly higher than it is for students of the same age now. That it has been repeatedly updated, sometimes idiotically (illustrations? puh-leeeze) doesn't help a lot because the updates are additions, not corrections. It remains my go-to style manual since I first encountered the second edition 46 years ago. I only know of one other as good, and its author was unable to get it published...because it wasn't long enough. It didn't contain the verbose padding and repetition that makes late-20th- and 21st-century style handbooks really profitable. Not GOOD...just profitable.
I don't agree either. I don't consult a style guide often, but I pick up Strunk and White when I do.
E.B. White but he be Strunky
"...for an audience whose general level of education was significantly higher than it is for students of the same age now."
I don't think you mean this as it reads. The general level of education in the 1920s was about 8-9 years of schooling; now, it's nearly 14 (for people age 25 & over, in both cases). If you mean that the *rigor* of that education was greater, we could have a conversation (and I might still disagree).
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