I finally got my hands on Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Random House’s longtime copy chief, Benjamin Dreyer. If you’re a word geek, a punctuation nerd, a grammar enthusiast, or simply a lover of clarity in writing (and those who encourage clarity), then you will get a kick out of this book.
It was hard to pick one favorite passage, but Dreyer’s defense of fragments followed by his immediate warning about overusing them is worth repeating here. He notes that despite what we may have learned in high school, we can use fragments in our writing. With some restraint. (<—That was an example.) Dreyer’s point about restraint is what I’m quoting below.
That said, do wield your fragments with a purpose, and mindfully. I lately find them, particularly in fiction, too often used to establish a sort of hairy, sweaty, unbathed masculine narrative voice, and what they end up sounding like is asthma.
Dreyer’s English is full of short discussions like the one above that make concepts of word, punctuation, and grammar usage come alive. I think it’s a must for all writers!
See my full 2019 reading list so far here.
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