A metaphor is like a simile…
In a July, 1957 column in The New Yorker, E.B. White reminisced warmly about one of his Cornell English professors, William Strunk, Jr., and about the pamphlet that Strunk had used to guide students’ use of English when White was student there in 1919. An editor at Macmillan, Jack Case, was charmed by the column and persuaded White to revise, expand and update Strunk’s work. (Strunk had died in 1946.)…
And so it was that, fifty years ago next month, in April of 1959, Macmillan published the first edition of that invaluable guide to plain and elegant English, The Elements of Style… or as readers surely know it, “Strunk and White.”
As we wrestle nouns and verbs into agreement, we might thank the Lord for Donald O’Connor, and seriously to consider his sage advice– “be a clown!”– as it was on this date in 1952 that Singin’ in the Rain was released.
