Safire's Outrageous Rules

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June 1, 2001

Tired of delivering textbook-dry dissertations on the rules of grammar to your entry-level journalists (who should know better, but unfortunately, often don't)? William Safire, language guru at The New York Times, offers this tongue-in-cheek approach to explaining the basic rules of writing: (1) Don't use no double negatives.

(2) Proofread carefully to see if any words out. (3) If I've told you once, I've told you 1,000 times, resist hyperbole! (4) Avoid overuse of "quotation marks." (5) If you re-read your work, you will find on re-reading a lot of repetition that can be avoided by rereading. (6) Avoid cliches like the plague. (7) Avoid overuse, of commas. (8) Never use long words when diminutive ones will do.