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Sin
and Syntax How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose by Constance Hale |
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"Today's writers need more spunk than Strunk." Thus reads the jacket to Sin and Syntax. "Now, from copy veteran Constance Hale comes a fun, informative, indispensable guide to taking your writing from ordinary to extraordinary." This book is divided into three parts, "Words," "Sentences," and "Music." These, in turn, are broken into Bones (grammar sermonettes) Flesh (lessons on writing) Cardinal Sins (true transgressions: errors made in ignorance) and Carnal Pleasures (playful, riotous, sometimes subversive pieces of writing that show how breaking the rules can lead to breakthrough prose). "Sin and Syntax is one of the rare books that recognizes–and even celebrates–the fact that good writing has little to do with 'rules' and much to do with a true understanding of effective prose. Connie Hale provides us an invaluable service by showing us what works and what doesn't in the real world, regardless of what the pedants say." — Jesse Sheidlower, Senior Editor of Random House Dictionaries and the author of "Jesse's Word of the Day" column. An excerpt from the Cardinal Sins section of Words, |
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