[ReignOfError]

William Strunk Jr. wrote "Elements of Style" as a guide for his Freshman English students at, I think, Yale. The thin book was useful enough that years after taking his class, a former student named E.B. White worked with the professor to revise it and have it published more widely. It's pretty much the Bible of English grammar and usage.

The reason I brought it up was that your comments on concise writing echo Srunk's, which I used to have taped to my monitor:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

[Carolinamom]

I've heard of "Elements of Style" but never had a copy. Evidently, my English instructors did!

I remember one of them telling the class that in constructing an essay we needed to work really hard on the opening to grab the reader's attention and to work really hard to make the closing a strong one. Then, rather impishly, he added, "If you have any junk, throw it in the middle."

[kitkat]

***Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.***

The bottom of page 23 in my old copy of "The Elements of Style." Priceless book.