This list has been floating around for years. Nonetheless, I thought I would share it since it popped up again in my reader this morning and it always gives me a chuckle. Sometimes, the best way to make a point is to “show, don’t tell” (was that a cliche?) so here goes nothing:
Twenty-six “Golden” Rules for Writing Well
- Don’t abbrev.
- Check to see if you any words out.
- Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.
- About sentence fragments.
- When dangling, don’t use participles.
- Don’t use no double negatives.
- Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
- Just between you and I, case is important.
- Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
- Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.
- Its important to use apostrophe’s right.
- It’s better not to unnecessarily split an infinitive.
- Never leave a transitive verb just lay there without an object.
- Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized. also a sentence should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop
- Use hyphens in compound-words, not just in any two-word phrase.
- In letters compositions reports and things like that we use commas to keep a string of items apart.
- Watch out for irregular verbs that have creeped into our language.
- Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
- Avoid unnecessary redundancy.
- A writer mustn’t shift your point of view.
- Don’t write a run-on sentence you’ve got to punctuate it.
- A preposition isn’t a good thing to end a sentence with.
- Avoid cliches like the plague.
- 1 final thing is to never start a sentence with a number.
- Always check your work for accuracy and completeness.
Get it?
Hat tip to far too many people to list here.
Great list Martha, and a wonderful way to illustrate these points!
Of course, my answer to rules is that few are “hard” and “fast”, but you can’t disagree that these are a good place to start, at least for a chuckle.
Cheers,
Martha
Yep! A good way to start the morning.