Sublime

“Properly speaking, of course, we cannot call it chaos. Grammar is like the air: someone higher up might try to set rules for using it, but people won’t necessarily follow them.”

H. L. Mencken said that “0.8 percent of the human race is capable of writing something that is instantly understandable.” He may have been a little high. Beware of dashing. “Effortless” articles that look as if they were dashed off are the result of strenuous effort. A piece of writing must be viewed as a constantly evolving organism.

Unity is the anchor of good writing. So, first, get your unities straight.

It is, of course, equally correct to write each of these as two sentences, replacing the semicolons with periods.

Simple Repetition of Words and Phrases:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline,

Sometimes my brackets surrounded an entire sentence—the one that essentially repeats what the previous sentence said, or that says something readers don’t need to know or can figure out for themselves.

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.