One of the popular items that circulate through the internet is a bubble-off-plumb set of rules along the lines of “Thimk,” “We Never Make Misteaks,” and “Plan Ahe . . .” — injunctions that call attention to the very mistakes they seek to enjoin. I’ve been collecting such items for half a century and, celebrating my 400th column in this space, I am pleased to share here the best ones. Whatever you think of these slightly cracked nuggets of rhetorical wisdom, just remember that all generalizations are bad.
- Each pronoun should agree with their antecedent.
- Between you and I, pronoun case is important.
- A writer must be sure to avoid using sexist pronouns in his writing.
- Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
- Don’t be a person whom people realize confuses who and whom.
- Never use no double negatives.
- Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
- When writing, participles must not be dangled.
- Be careful to never, under any circumstances, split infinitives.
- Hopefully, you won’t float your adverbs.
- A writer must not shift your point of view..
- Lay down and die before using a transitive verb without an object.
- Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
- The passive voice should be avoided.
- About sentence fragments.
- Don’t verb nouns.
- In letters themes reports and ad copy use commas to separate items in a series.
- Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.
- “Don’t overuse ‘quotation marks.'”
- Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (if the truth be told) superfluous.
- Contractions won’t, don’t, and can’t help your writing voice.
- Don’t write run-on sentences they are hard to read.
- Don’t forget to use end punctuation
- Its important to use apostrophe’s in the right places.
- Don’t abbrev.
- Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!!
- Resist Unnecessary Capitalization.
- Avoid mispellings.
- Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
- One-word sentences? Never.
- Avoid annoying, affected, and awkward alliteration, always.
- When writing, never, ever use repetitive redundancies that are superfluous and not needed.
- The bottom line is to bag trendy locutions that sound flaky.
- By observing the distinctions between adjectives and adverbs, you will treat your readers real good.
- Parallel structure will help you in writing more effective sentences and to express yourself more gracefully.
- In my own personal opinion at this point of time, I think that authors, when they are writing, should not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that they don’t really need.
- Foreign words and phrases are the reader’s bête noire and are not apropos.
- Who needs rhetorical questions?
- Always go in search for the correct idiom.
- Do not cast statements in the negative form.
- So don’t start sentences with coordinating conjunctions.
- Avoid mixed metaphors. They will kindle a flood of confusion in your readers.
- Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
- Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
- Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
- Be more or less specific.
- If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement, which is always best.
- Never use a big word when you can utilize a diminutive word.
- Profanity sucks.
- Last but not least, bend over backward to avoid old-hat clichés like the plague.