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"""Elementary Rules of Usage.
---
layout: post
source: Strunk & White
source_url: ???
title: Elementary Principles of Composition
date: 2014-06-10 12:31:19
categories: writing
---
Strunk & White say:
1. Choose a suitable design and hold to it.
* MDPNB: Sounds like a principle of `consistency`.
2. Make the paragraph the unit of composition.
* MDPNB: This can be generalized to say something about variability in the
length of paragraphs and sentences. When any device is too often used it
becomes a mannerism.
* MDPNB: Sounds like a principle of `variation`.
3. Use the active voice.
4. Put statements in positive form.
* MDPNB: In some cases this will apply as an invective against the use of
a double negative.
* Ex: He was not very often on time. -> He usually came late.
* Ex:
4.1. Placing negative and positive in opposition makes for a stronger
structure.
* Ex. Not charity, but simple justice.
* Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.
4.2. Do not use unnecessary auxiliaries or conditionals.
5. Use definite, specific, concrete language.
* A period of unfavorable weather set in. ->It rained every day for a week.
6. Omit needless words.
* `The fact that` is particularly pernicious.
* `who is, which was` and the like are often superfluous
7. Avoid a succession of loose sentences.
* MDPNB Principle of brevity. Take 2.
8. Express coordinate ideas in similar form.
* MDPNB: Principle of parallel structure.
* MDPNB: This one will be hard...
9. Keep related words together.
* MDPNB: Principle of localism in semantics.
10. In summaries, keep to one tense.
* MDPNB: Principle of temporal consistency.
11. Place the emphatic word of a sentence at the end.
* MDPNB: Principle of recency.
"""
from proselint.tools import memoize, preferred_forms_check
@memoize
def check(text):
"""Suggest the preferred forms."""
err = "strunk_white.composition"
msg = "Try '{}' instead of '{}'."
bad_forms = [
# Put statements in positive form
["dishonest", ["not honest"]],
["trifling", ["not important"]],
["forgot", ["did not remember"]],
["ignored", ["did not pay (any )?attention to"]],
["distrusted", ["did not have much confidence in"]],
# Omit needless words
["whether", ["the question as to whether"]],
["no doubt", ["there is no doubt but that"]],
["used for fuel", ["used for fuel purposes"]],
["he", ["he is a man who"]],
["hastily", ["in a hasty manner"]],
["this subject", ["this is a subject that"]],
["Her story is strange.", ["Her story is a strange one."]],
["because", ["the reason why is that"]],
["because / since", ["owing to the fact that"]],
["although / though", ["in spite of the fact that"]],
["remind you / notify you",
["call your attention to the fact that"]],
["I did not know that / I was unaware that",
["I was unaware of the fact that"]],
["his failure", ["the fact that he had not succeeded"]],
["my arrival", ["the fact that i had arrived"]]
]
return preferred_forms_check(text, bad_forms, err, msg)
|
