By Francis Moran

Any regular reader of this blog will know that inmedia is a shop that prides itself on its writing chops. Indeed, several of us willingly self-identify as grammar geeks.

When someone is looking to work here, I now ask three questions that immediately sort the writers from the rest. First, I ask candidates to rate their writing talent on a scale from one to 10. The real writers don’t hesitate to put themselves eight or higher. But posers will blow air into their answers to this one, so it’s not terribly definitive.

Next, I ask them what other people have said all their lives about their writing. This is the key question. Really good writers stand apart from the crowd and have been hearing ever since they were in school that they are exceptional. The question is not the least peculiar to them; they know exactly what I mean and they answer it right away and without so much as a blush of false humility. It is perfectly ordinary and everyday for their writing to be praised.

Finally, I ask them to name three writing or grammar reference books that they use consistently. I don’t really care what titles they give me so long as they offer them up with very little hesitation. While the posers will hum and haw, the real writers know that this craft is a complex one that regularly requires pulling down dictionaries, thesauruses and other reference guides as we strive for excellence. Besides the first two, I’m really looking for someone who cares enough about their craft that they own and can effortlessly recall at least a couple of standard writing, grammar and editing references such as the Chicago Manual of Style, about which I’ve written before, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, The Reader Over Your Shoulder by Graves and Hodge, or a little tome that actually became a best-seller a few years back, Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss.

If my candidate has ever taken a university-level writing course in any Canadian or American school, The Elements of Style, which two weeks ago marked the 50th anniversary of its original publication, is almost always cited. Although I own a copy from my own undergraduate days, it’s not a reference on which I have ever heavily relied. I have always been somewhat confused by what I have found to be its bewildering rules about passive versus active voice. I have always put my confusion down to the fact that I think I am better at writing well than I am about explaining writing well. In other words, I seem innately to know how to do it properly; I can’t always explain why or how I’m doing it properly.

Now, thanks to a linguistics professor at the University of Edinburgh, I perhaps have an explanation for my confused reaction to The Elements of Style. In a damning article in the April 17, 2009 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Geoffrey Pullham regrets the “50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice” he says has been peddled to American students by William Strunk and E.B. (Charlotte’s Web) White. He takes particular umbrage at the guide’s admonition against employing the passive voice, writing that its authors didn’t know what they were talking about and usually identified as passive passages those that were, in fact, active. Much relief over here, I can tell you.

On another front, though, I have always credited Strunk and White when I dictate that adverbs should be avoided. At least, they should be avoided as cheap modifiers of adjectives. For example, it’s just lazy writing to stick a spare “very” in front of an adjective to convey a greater degree of whatever the adjective itself is describing; come up with a more potent adjective that can do the job without a modifier. Where the professor and I agree that Strunk and White were overly doctrinaire, however, is that adverbs are perfectly fine for the modifying of verbs and quite acceptable when conveying particular emphasis on adjectives. Note my use of the adverbs “perfectly” and “quite” doing yeoman duty modifying the adjectives “fine” and “acceptable” in that last sentence!

Happy 50th anniversary, Elements, but, like the professor, I probably won’t be throwing any parties. I’ll still accept you as an answer to my third question, though, so long as it comes without hesitation.

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