“Omit needless words.”
That’s Rule 13 in my copy of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style (second edition), and it should be the mantra of anyone who wants their writing to be, you know…read.
Unfortunately, too many of us interpret the rule as “use fewer words.” But that’s not what it means at all. It means that every word must tell.
Case in point: In an otherwise harmless article about the New Yorker recently adding a crossword puzzle to the back of the magazine, we read that in February, “the publication announced that every print issue going forward will include a crossword puzzle.”
So what purpose does “going forward” serve here?
After all, will is a verb in the future tense; “going forward” is redundant. And redundancy and repetition are exactly what Rule 13 was designed to fix. “Every print issue will include a crossword puzzle” says exactly the same thing, and—bonus!—it doesn’t employ a tiresome cliché.
by Katie