How to Write Good

A Short, Ten-Step Guide to Better Grammar

Tom White

Jan 20, 2023

The next grammar book I bring out I want to tell how to end a sentence with five prepositions.
A father of a little boy goes upstairs after supper to read to his son, but he brings the wrong book.
The boy says, “What did you bring that book that I don’t want to be read to out of up for?”
—E. B. White

Above: A bad picture of a good Christmas gift given to this ~~vocal~~ silent grammarian.

The grammar world has been rocking and rollicking as of late.

If not attuned to such matters, not to worry, dear reader! As token fiendish, fickle grammatician, I shall share more.

A Sanskrit grammatical problem which has perplexed scholars since the 5th Century BC has been solved by a University of Cambridge PhD student.

Per the BBC:

Rishi Rajpopat, 27, decoded a rule taught by Panini, a master of the ancient Sanskrit language who lived around 2,500 years ago…Mr Rajpopat said he had "a eureka moment in Cambridge" after spending nine months "getting nowhere".
Panini's grammar, known as the Astadhyayi, relied on a system that functioned like an algorithm to turn the base and suffix of a word into grammatically correct words and sentences.
However, two or more of Panini's rules often apply simultaneously, resulting in conflicts.
Panini taught a "metarule", which is traditionally interpreted by scholars as meaning "in the event of a conflict between two rules of equal strength, the rule that comes later in the grammar's serial order wins".
However, this often led to grammatically incorrect results.
Mr Rajpopat rejected the traditional interpretation of the metarule. Instead, he argued that Panini meant that between rules applicable to the left and right sides of a word respectively, Panini wanted us to choose the rule applicable to the right side.
Employing this interpretation, he found the Panini's "language machine" produced grammatically correct words with almost no exceptions.

Per the above, grammar is important.

It separates the wheat from the chaff, the man from the beast, the Oxford comma enthusiast from the…well, you get the idea.

As a discipline, grammar has been, is, and will continue to be vital to commerce, communication, and community. Its mysteries remain myriad and its wonders apparent to all those who look closely.

If words are bricks and paragraphs walls, then grammar is the mortar that holds everything together. If absent, broken, or misapplied, all inevitably falls down.

To aid your pursuits with the pen, I present the below list of ten grammatical edicts.

Though rules are made to be broken, these may well help you right gooder:

Don’t ever use contractions.
Understatement is the greatest thing of all time.
Deftly avoid all adverbs.
Be sure to use the Oxford comma for lists of three, four and more.
Why bother asking rhetorical questions?
Only use idioms once in a blue moon.
Semicolons are often overused; incorrectly, at that.
Do not use two words where one will do. Not ever.
Absolutely annihilate any and all annoying, asinine alliteration
Its important not to misuse it’s.
Numeracy is just as important as literacy.

Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.

If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on Twitter.

With sincere gratitude,

Tom