“Omit needless words!” cries the author on page 23, and into that imperative Will Strunk really put his heart and soul.

The Elements of Style book cover

I have recently read William Strunk’s little book The Elements of Style.

It is very short, but dense.

One cannot internalize all the rules and principles on the first read. Hence, I have decided to read it once a year to acquire more good habits as time passes.

I think that this book is relevant for two reasons:

  • English is currently the lingua franca of business and science in our time.
  • Human language is gradually gaining more importance in programming, i.e. prompt engineering. It’s reasonable to expect that the intersection between human language skills (humanities) and technical fields (STEM) will continue to grow.