folio

As you noted, there are "other guides". As an antidote to Strunk & White, I have always liked the Fowler brothers' The King's English (1906):

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_King%27s_English

Just a small sample:

"The 'split' infinitive has taken such hold upon the consciences of journalists that, instead of warning the novice against splitting his infinitives, we must warn him against the curious superstition that the splitting or not splitting makes the difference between a good and a bad writer."

> If I close my eyes and put earplugs in when an ad is playing is that piracy?

See: https://www.iflscience.com/eyetracking-moviepass-app-will-pa...

I hope you are right, but this is a for-profit company that has just received a new round of funding. From an Austin American-Statesman article[1], "Colossal Biosciences, which this week announced a new $150 million funding round, is led by Austin-based entrepreneur Ben Lamm..." And from a Yahoo! Finance article[2], "Colossal’s use of various gene editing technologies will make waves across sectors – in agriculture...as well as in human health through improved gene therapy and vaccine development."

I think it is reasonable to assume that there is a "business model" here.

[1]: https://www.statesman.com/story/business/technology/2023/01/...

[2]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/colossal-biosciences-secures-...

About the turn of the twentieth century, American actor William Gillette was writing a stage play about Sherlock Holmes. Gillette wrote to Conan Doyle asking if he would object to Gillette having Holmes get married in the play. Doyle wrote back telling Gillette he could marry Holmes, murder Holmes, or do whatever he wanted to do with Holmes. (Story told in Vincent Starrett's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes [Macmillan, New York, 1933].)

I'm a big fan of "fun to read" "trashy" novels. Raymond Chandler (author of the Philip Marlowe detective novels) once said that when he got stuck writing he would have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.

A couple of years after this essay appeared Jedediah Purdy published something of a response in The Nation:

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/thoreau-radical-se...

Please, Barnes' "reasoning" is not naiveté. Barnes and his colleagues understand exactly what they are doing. The Barnes article is evidence of nothing but contempt for its intended audience.