Dear all out there, please accept my interrupting my scream of agony and apathy by presenting you with the most hilarious guidelines for writing I'v ever come accross. I found it on a blog, whose author admitted having stolen it from somewhere else, so I don't feel any more need to explain the situation and give credits to anyone. Anyone! Thanks! That is great!
So, read carefully. And learn.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. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
17. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
18. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
19. The passive voice is to be ignored.
20. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
21. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
22. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
23. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
24. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
25. 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.
26. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
27. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
28. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
29. Who needs rhetorical questions?
30. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
And the last one...
31. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
Now, which rules do YOU violate most often?
I prefer violating rules 2,3,4,7,11,13,14,17,25,29,31 - and, apart from the last one I like committing such mistakes.
2 megjegyzés:
Thanks for commenting on my blog. I notice one of your favorite books is One Hundred years of Solitude; I'm reading it right now and it was that style of writing I imitated when I wrote the short story you read! But thank you for the comparison to Oscar Wilde. I did take it as a compliment.
BTW, if English is your second language, consider me very impressed!
Thanks for visiting me. I loved 100years of solitude so very much that I read it more than once. I think I read it at least four times. I read it in Hungarian, but read Oscar Wilde in English.
The list in this post (guidelines for proper writing) however, was not compiled by me. I did have difficulties understanding some of the rules, but I think I finally got it. As for the rest of my post, you might want to see entry Június 30, when I write about using two languages.
Megjegyzés küldése