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I just read the email containing Jim's (hayduke) comment on my last article about what passes for English grammar in the news paper, and I became inspired to hammer out another post on the subject of the English language.
I can still remember the nun who taught sixth grade, diagramming sentences on the blackboard, and I can also remember much of what I learned. Hopefully my skill with words (or at least my vocabulary) has increased since then, and I'd like to share with you some of what I know. So, whether you're a student in college or just an aspiring writer, here are a few writing tips that will help you write good--like me!
* Always avoid alliteration.
* Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
* Avoid cliches like the plague—they're old hat.
* Employ the vernacular.
* Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
* Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
* Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
* It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
* Contractions aren't necessary.
* Do not use a foreign word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.
* One should never generalize.
* Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
* Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
* Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
* It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.
* Avoid archaeic spellings too.
* Understatement is always best.
* Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
* One-word sentences? Eliminate. Always!
* Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
* The passive voice should not be used.
* Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
* Don't repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
* Who needs rhetorical questions?
* Don't use commas, that, are not, necessary.
* Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.
* Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.
* Subject and verb always has to agree.
* Be more or less specific.
* Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.
* Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.
* Don't repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
* Don't be redundant.
* Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
* Don't never use no double negatives.
* Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.
* Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
* Eschew obfuscation.
* No sentence fragments.
* Don't indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.
* A writer must not shift your point of view.
* Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
* Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
* Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
* If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
* Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
* Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
* Always pick on the correct idiom.
* The adverb always follows the verb.
* Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
* If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
* And always be sure to finish what
