Found this blast of writing rules from the past at Lists of Note
Late-1979, New York Times columnist William Safire compiled a list of "Fumblerules of Grammar" – rules of writing, all of which are humorously self-contradictory – and published them in his popular column, "On Language." Those 36 fumblerules can be seen below, along with another 18 that later featured in Safire's book, Fumblerules: A Lighthearted Guide to Grammar and Good Usage.
one of my favorites? This jewel:
Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
Some others?
Remember to never split an infinitive.
A preposition is something never to end a sentence with.
The passive voice should never be used.
Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
Don't use no double negatives.
Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.
Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.
Do not put statements in the negative form.
Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
No sentence fragments.
Scoot on over to the site for the rest of them :)
Comments
Ahh, I remember this.
Thought it was priceless then and still do.
He shows you every point he's talking about just by doing it. And he was funny doing it.
Maggie
Hm...
I actually took the opposite: He showed you why, occasionally, it is in fact OK to commit grammatical errors as long as you are doing it for purpose.
Abigail Drew.
some of the rules
At least some of the rules he's breaking are non-existent. For instance, there is no rule of English grammar that says you can't split an infinitive. Good writers do it frequently whenever not doing so would be clumsy or less effective.
The dangling preposition is another English construction that can be avoided in good writing but shouldn't be eliminated in effective writing.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Dangling prepositions?
...are those what I think they are? Don't they have special garments to address that issue?
Love, Andrea Lena
You Misspelled Porpose
'nuf said.
Also too (in addition)...
There is a pretty funny twitter feed from the Fake AP Stylebook.
It's given some very practical suggestions, such as:
Prepositions
A preposition is something never to end a sentence with.
Really? How about this gem I remember reading that illustrates this point very well.
Jimmy was a sick young man and consequently was in his bed upstairs, recuperating.
His sister came into the room, and asked if she could do anything at this time. Jimmy replied that he would like her to read to him, but all the books were downstairs in the family library.
His sis told him there was a not problem, and she would get a book, and read it to him.
It wasn't long before she returned with a book, and showed it to Jimmy, who promptly said to her,
"Why did you bring that book I don't want to be read to out of up for?"
Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?
Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm
Double Negative
I ain't never used no double negative, nohow. That's four. Can anyone do five?