"How To Write Good" by Frank L. Visco | Hacker News Reader

"How To Write Good" by Frank L. Visco

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51 pointsColinWright23 comments

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Is everyone seriously missing the joke(s)?

PS This is hilarious. :)

"Profanity Sucks"

The only one that didn't "work", probably because the author and I have different definitions of profanity.

Isn't it meta-ironic for a style guide to use MS Comic?

The first thing I did was change the font. Erk.

24. Use appropriate font.

24. Use comic sans.Always.Everywhere.

This should have a (1986) tacked onto the end of the headline. Hard to believe it made its way onto the front page of HN. I guess if you've never seen it, it's new to you. There must be more Internet newbies on HN than one would imagine.

Hate to break it to you man, but most readers of HN probably weren't even born yet in 1986, much less using the internet in 1986.

Maybe there is a Zen Koan in here:

"What did your spam look like before your parents were born?"

Prohibiting sentence-ending prepositions? "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put," -- Winston Churchill

Splitting infinitives is done so frequently today that it sounds more natural. Consider: "I was hoping to completely finish the project before the teacher called on me"

That sounds awful to me. Much better:

  I was hoping to finish the project completely
  before the teacher called on me.

I agree that sometimes splitting infinitives sound better, but it happens less often than most people think, and to my ear, this is certainly not one of the cases.

   I was hoping to finish the project before the teacher called on me.

the completely doesn't even need to be there

From the Oxford A–Z of Grammar and Punctuation by John Seely:

split infinitive

The infinitive is the form of the verb made by adding to to its stem:

to go

Some traditionalists say that you should never place anything between the to and the stem. They argue that since the infinitive is a part of the verb it should never be split. So it is wrong to say to boldly go. You should instead say to go boldly or boldly to go.

There is no grammatical justification for this so-called 'rule', and people have been splitting infinitives for centuries. Indeed sometimes it is impossible to convey your meaning unless you do split an infinitive. For example:

Everyone else thought they were too young to really cope with adult responsibilities.

If you move really to another position you change the meaning of the sentence:

Everyone else thought they were too young really to cope with adult responsibilities.

Everyone else thought they were too young to cope really with adult responsibilities.

(Amazon link to book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199564671/ref=as_li_qf_sp_... )

In this example, I personally prefer "to cope fully" and thereby avoid the argument anyway.

But as I say elsewhere, I agree that sometimes splitting the infinitive is necessary to shade the meaning correctly.

"Everyone else thought they were really too young to cope with adult responsibilities"

If you word it like this, the emphasis of 'really' is moved to 'too young' but the sentence's meaning is the same, right?

But then 'really' modifies 'were too young', not 'to cope'.

The rule against split infinitives is a legacy from people who wished that English should have been more like Latin.

You never split an infinitive in Latin because the to part is part of the word.

I'm old-fashioned this way, but split infinitives are like nails on chalk to me. I try to avoid using adverbs, but if an adverb is necessary, I try to place it after the verb it is modifying, not before.

Another recent habit is the infinitive split with a negative: "I asked him to not do that any more," rather than: "I asked him not to do that any more."

An unsplit negative can sometimes lead readers down a garden path, but that usually indicates a need to rethink the sentence, for example to reframe it without a negative: "I asked him to stop doing that."

Am I the only person who thinks most grammatical rules are complete crap? Everyone has their own writing style, which is what makes reading works by different authors so enjoyable. The one rule I especially dislike is the 'never end sentences with a preposition' rule, which if always abided by, will dramatically overcomplicate many sentences.

It's always possible to avoid having a preposition be the thing that a sentence ends with. If the version with the preposition at the end sounds more natural, I agree that's what you should go for.

Most rules of grammar are wonderful, unless you enjoy trying to extract meaning from sentences like, "their works by makes enjoyable everyone has style, which own what authors reading different writing".

The "rule" about dangling prepositions isn't much of a rule at all. Most grammarians shun it and it's never been followed widely in prose and certainly not in speech.

One related rule that is worth following is: "don't end a sentence with a preposition if removing it wouldn't change the meaning of the sentence." For example, "where are you at" should be "where are you" since the "at" adds no meaning (unless you want to convey a colloquial voice).

http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/research/groups/protein/pert/safir...

first I thought he's serious, and decided to write a comment that I don't think he is right. Now I got the Idea

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