2019-02-11 The Elements of Style 小结

It's been popular and recommended among my friends. William Strunk's Elements of Style does help a lot English writers, readers and learners. To me, I think I'll have to read it more than once to make the best use of it.

This book consists of five main chapters: Basic rules of English, Principles of writing, Questions about forms, Cmmon mistakes and Style.

I don't think I learned a lot because after finish reading it, I cannot tell you how much I gaind reading this book. It's more like learned much knowledge about English grammar rules, expressions, and so on. When I look at the notes I kept, there's nothing about writing but Langurage. This makes me confused again about myself, and about my reading methods and experience. It seems that I've spent much time learning English by reading this book. I'm not learning how to write at all.

Apparently it's a long way to go. I'll share some of my notes here.

This is a protrait of Benjamin Harrison, grandson of William Henry Harrison, who became President in 1889.

This is a protrait of Benjamin Harrison, who became president in 1889. He was the grandson of William Henry Harrison.

We can tell that the first sentence is confusing us whether the grandpa was the president or the grandson was the president.So put the descriptive part right next to the subject you want to describe. The second sentence divided the original one into two sentences but it expresses clearly.

Since that time, humanity has advanced in many ways, but it has hardly advanced in fortitude.

Here advance is used as a verb.

These are the times that try men's souls.

这是考验灵魂的时代。Try one's soul. Try 可以做考验。

an agreement between the six heirs

我们常用Among来说超过两个人以上的群体。当包含超过两个人或事物，并且其中每个成员都被看做是独立的个体时，用between好些。

The Elements of Style.

William Strunk's Elements of Style.

当我们在作品前加上作者时，要删除标题开始的a 或者 the。

a nice distinction

nice 精确的，微妙的 这让我想到了 novel 做形容词意思是 新颖的

disinterested

公正的，不偏袒的

uninterested 才是不感兴趣的，这让我想到了indifferent 冷漠的