Friday, September 9, 2011

Strunk and White parody

From Gary Klien’s The Elements of Press Release Style:

1. Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is precise. A press release should contain no unnecessary words, for the same reason a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

BAD
“The company regrets its role in this major environmental catastrophe, and we are fully committed to making the community whole.”

BETTER
“This environmental catastrophe is regrettable.”
Related reading
All Strunk and White posts (via Pinboard)

comments: 1

Elaine said...

BEST:
The company mistakenly created a terrible mess, and we will clean it up.