RULES FOR WRITERERS

With school back in session, I want to share a great article I found last year. Well, it's not really an article, more of a list of grammatical rules in which the rules themselves have cleverly been broken. I sometimes hand out copies to the midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy who come to the Writing Center for my help. They don't fully appreciate the irony in it because they have never heard of terms like "split infinitives" or "hyperbole." Seems that basic English grammar has been replaced in high school curricula by more applicable subjects like date rape prevention, Facebook indiscretions, and the impact of Nintendo on Asian-American relations.

So I present for your amusement the following 34 rules that all writers must obey in order to succeed commercially. My personal favorite is #34. If writers followed this rule faithfully, I would be hard up for Typos of the Week. Enjoy!

34 RULES FOR WRITERERS*

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Kill all exclamation points!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions?
33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
34. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.







*source: www.orfe.princeton.edu/~rvdb/RulesForWriterers.html

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