A celebration of the best little book you’ve never told anyone you’ve read

Originally published April 23, 2009.

Another celebrity has tumbled over the hill, and by celebrity, I mean the most well-known book no one talks about.

Fifty years ago this month, a thin volume hit bookstore shelves for the low, low price of a dollar. I paid 10 for mine two years ago, which seemed outrageous at the time. Little did I know what I was getting.

“The Elements of Style” was originally written and privately published by a Cornell professor named William Strunk, Jr. In 1957, J. Jonah Jameson revised and updated Strunk’s original, or at least a guy who looked suspiciously like him — E.B. White, of Charlotte’s Web fame.

The style guide includes memorable lines certain to go over well at the next party you attend, like “make the paragraph the unit of composition,” and “do not construct awkward adverbs.”

Infamous among people who read books on style (see: English professors, their unfortunate students), I first encountered Strunk and White’s masterpiece on a book list my sophomore year. My professor encouraged us to read one chapter a night until we finished it. As there are only five chapters, he also suggested that we go back and read it again periodically throughout the semester. He told us the same thing at the outset of the second class I took with him.

In his syllabus, Ethan Lewis also stressed something else I will never forget: “Don’t be intimidated by the language: know it; it belongs to you, as to everyone.”

Though I didn’t follow his instructions and read repeatedly through “The Elements of Style” two years ago, a combination of what I imagined it contained and Dr. Lewis’s teaching compelled me to keep it on my shelf.

Having read and reread parts of it now, I couldn’t help but feel proud when I saw NPR’s piece on the 50th anniversary of the book, as if I knew a celebrity. Part of me wishes I would have been sitting next to someone so I could have leaned over and nudged them with my elbow, pointed to the computer screen and said, “Hey. Hey, I own that book.”

So, 50 years later, why should anyone still be talking about a style guide, of all things?

For me, Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” goes hand-in-hand with what Dr. Lewis still stresses in his classes. In a day and age when more college students than ever mix up “your” and “you’re,” language needs to be accessible to everyone.

That’s the whole idea behind William Strunk’s “little book,” as White mentions in his introduction. When talking about his addition of a fifth chapter to the book (titled “An Approach to Style”), White explains that his section “is addressed particularly to those who feel that English prose composition is not only a necessary skill but a sensible pursuit as well — a way to spend one’s days.”

With its brevity and simple guidelines for writing, Strunk and White wanted “The Elements of Style” to provide clear instruction to anyone. I’m sure they’d approve my recommending it to those with a Twitter account, an IM client or a texting plan.

Despite all the rules included in the guide, this book doesn’t pretend to give readers the grammatical high ground. It’s an attempt to give anyone and everyone the means to use language to the best of their ability. It’s an encouragement not only to write for an essay, a business letter or a column, but for you — for your own sake. It’s an establishment of the technicalities of writing that leaves you to develop your own creative voice through a better understanding of the language that belongs to you.

At the Union Bookstore, a brand new copy of Elements of Style still costs $10. It’s a small price to pay for something that will still be invaluable in another 50 years.

Chelsea is a senior in Creative Writing and English.