In the days when I was sitting in his class, he omitted so many needless words, and omitted them so forcibly and with such eagerness and obvious relish, that he often seemed in the position of having short-changed himself, a man left with nothing more to say yet with time to fill, a radio prophet who had outdistanced the clock.Will Strunk got out of this predicament by a simple trick: he uttered every sentence three times.
The professor devotes a special paragraph to the vile expression “the fact that,” a phrase that causes him to quiver with revulsion. The expression, he says, should be “revised out of every sentence in which it occurs.”
There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground.
dead leaves covered the ground.
At dawn the crowing of a rooster could be heard.
the cock's crow came with dawn
the reason he left college was that his health became impaired.
failing health compelled him to leave college.
it was not long before he was very sorry that he had said what he had.
he soon repented his word.
the antithesis of negative and positive is strong.
not charity, but simple justice.
or negative words other than not are usually strong.
The professor devotes a special paragraph to the vile expression “the fact that,” a phrase that causes him to quiver with revulsion. The expression, he says, should be “revised out of every sentence in which it occurs.”
There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground.
dead leaves covered the ground.
At dawn the crowing of a rooster could be heard.
the cock's crow came with dawn
the reason he left college was that his health became impaired.
failing health compelled him to leave college.
it was not long before he was very sorry that he had said what he had.
he soon repented his word.
the antithesis of negative and positive is strong.
not charity, but simple justice.
or negative words other than not are usually strong.
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