{"id":1251,"date":"2004-01-22T00:28:00","date_gmt":"2004-01-22T04:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/2004\/01\/omit-needless-words\/"},"modified":"2010-04-02T18:18:57","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T22:18:57","slug":"omit-needless-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/2004\/01\/omit-needless-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Omit needless words"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"initial-letter\"><p>After some months and numerous delays, I have finished reading Strunk &amp; White&#8217;s <em>The Elements of Style<\/em> &#8212; all 85 pages of it (102, with the glossary and introductions). It seems that doing so required that I spend two weeks in parts unfamiliar and two hours on a bus with broken headphones. Despite the uncertainty which, on cue, descends upon me as I descend back home, I feel both relieved and delighted by the advice in this volume. <!-- The principles here aid in mending some emotional bruises I have housed since I became sophisticated enough to notice how my writing resembles that of a confused academic.--><\/p>\n<p>An excerpt; see if you can guess at the root of my fondness:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><strong>Flammable<\/strong><\/em>. \u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 An oddity, chiefly useful in saving lives. The common word meaning &#8220;combustible&#8221; is <em>inflammable<\/em>. But some people are thrown off by the <em>in-<\/em> and think <em>inflammable<\/em> means &#8220;not combustible.&#8221; For this reason, trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operating such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use <em>inflammable.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>My having read the book also gives me a more solid introduction to the gerund.<\/p>\n<p>The next time I am insane, I might revise my entire backlog of articles, such that they no longer horrify me.<\/p>\n<p>I have been suggested to post this. I will post this now.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After some months and numerous delays, I have finished reading Strunk &amp; White&#8217;s The Elements of Style &#8212; all 85 pages of it (102, with the glossary and introductions). It seems that doing so required that I spend two weeks in parts unfamiliar and two hours on a bus with broken headphones. Despite the uncertainty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[31,500,213,294],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-discoveries","tag-highlights","tag-language","tag-literature","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2393,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions\/2393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}