# Strunk > Strunk's Elements of Style — Rewriter - Skill: `y-a-v-a/strunk` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 3 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add y-a-v-a/strunk` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/y-a-v-a/strunk/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: y-a-v-a (https://skillmd.com/u/y-a-v-a) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/y-a-v-a/strunk --- # Strunk's Elements of Style — Rewriter ## Invocation contract - Argument is either a path to a text file (read with Read) or inline text. Treat the argument as a path if it points to an existing file; otherwise as the source text. - No argument → ask the user once for input. Empty input → empty output. ## Output contract - Print **only** the rewritten text. No headings, no preface, no list of rules applied, no diff, no closing summary. First character out is the first character of the rewrite. - Never write the rewrite to a file unless the user explicitly requests it. - If after applying rules nothing changes, print the original text back as-is. Do not say so. ## Aggressiveness Moderate. Do: - Tighten freely, flip passive→active, cut needless words, fix word misuse, repunctuate. - Combine clause-chains into denser single sentences when meaning survives. Do not: - Add, remove, or reorder facts, claims, examples, citations, footnotes. - Reorganize paragraphs or change paragraph count. - Modernize archaic words the author chose deliberately (proper-noun era, dialogue, period writing). - Invent details to fill out a vague sentence — leave vague-but-correct prose vague. ## Preserve verbatim (do not rewrite inside) - Fenced code blocks ` ``` … ``` ` and inline code `` ` … ` `` - URLs, file paths, shell commands, regex - Quoted speech (`"…"`, `'…'`) and block quotes (`> …`) - Tables, math, equations, ASCII diagrams - Proper nouns, named entities, technical terms-of-art Rewrite freely in: ordinary prose, list-item prose, heading prose (but keep slug-able heading anchors stable when context suggests linking). ## Era caveats Strunk wrote in 1918. Three of his rules now read as wrong or dated; apply with judgment, not blindly: - **Singular *they***: Strunk prescribes *he* with distributives (*each*, *everybody*, *anybody*). Modern English accepts singular *they*. Preserve whichever pronoun the author chose; do not impose *he*. - **shall / will**: the 1st-person *shall* vs *will* distinction is no longer observed. Do not introduce *shall* where the author wrote *will*. - **to-day / to-night / to-morrow**: hyphenated forms are obsolete. Write *today*, *tonight*, *tomorrow*. Apply every other rule. --- ## Ch. II — Elementary rules of usage 1. **Possessive singular: add `'s`** regardless of final consonant — *Charles's*, *Burns's*, *witch's*. Exceptions: ancient proper names in *-es*/*-is* (*Achilles' heel* → *the heel of Achilles*), *Jesus'*, *for conscience' sake*, *for righteousness' sake*. Pronominal possessives take no apostrophe: *hers*, *its*, *theirs*, *yours*, *oneself*. 2. **Oxford comma** in series of three or more single-conjunction terms — *red, white, and blue*; *He opened the letter, read it, and made a note of its contents.* Drop only inside firm names (*Brown, Shipley & Co.*). 3. **Parenthetic expressions go between paired commas** — never one. Always parenthetic: year inside a date (*April 6, 1917*), day-of-month after weekday (*Monday, November 11, 1918*), *etc.*, *jr.*, non-restrictive relative clauses (the `which` clause, not the `that` clause). Restrictive clauses take no commas. 4. **Comma before a conjunction (`and, but, or, nor, for, as, while`) joining coordinate clauses** — *The situation is perilous, but there is still one chance of escape.* If the subject is shared and the connective is *and* with a tight relation, omit the comma. Adverb-joined clauses take semicolons, not commas. 5. **Do not splice independent clauses with a comma.** Use a semicolon, a comma + conjunction, or a period. Allowed exception: short, parallel clauses (*Man proposes, God disposes.*). Adverbial joiners (*accordingly, besides, then, therefore, thus*) still need a semicolon. 6. **Do not break a sentence with a period where a comma belongs.** Sentence fragments only for deliberate emphasis (*Again and again he called out. No reply.*) — and only when no reader will mistake them for a slip. 7. **Opening participial phrase must refer to the grammatical subject.** Same for opening adjective phrases, appositives, and prepositional participials. *Walking slowly down the road, he saw a woman…* not *…the clock struck twelve.* ## Ch. III — Elementary principles of composition 8. **One paragraph per topic.** Do not split one idea across paragraphs; do not merge topics. 9. **Topic sentence near the start; close in conformity with it.** Don't end on digression or unimportant detail. 10. **Active voice.** Replace *there is/are/were*, *could be heard*, and noun-subjects-of-passives that swallow their own action: - *There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground.* → *Dead leaves covered the ground.* - *A survey of this region was made in 1900.* → *This region was surveyed in 1900.* - *The reason that he left college was that his health became impaired.* → *Failing health compelled him to leave college.* Passive is fine when the right word needs to be subject. Never stack two passives. 11. **Positive form.** Use *not* for denial or antithesis, never evasion. - *not honest* → *dishonest*; *not important* → *trifling*; *did not remember* → *forgot*; *did not pay any attention to* → *ignored*; *did not have much confidence in* → *distrusted*; *He was not very often on time.* → *He usually came late.* 12. **Definite, specific, concrete.** Prefer specific over general, definite over vague, concrete over abstract. - *A period of unfavorable weather set in.* → *It rained every day for a week.* - *He showed satisfaction as he took possession of his well-earned reward.* → *He grinned as he pocketed the coin.* 13. **Omit needless words.** Vigorous writing is concise. Standard cuts: - *the question as to whether* → *whether* - *there is no doubt but that* → *doubtless* - *used for fuel purposes* → *used for fuel* - *he is a man who* → *he* - *in a hasty manner* → *hastily* - *this is a subject which* → *this subject* - *His story is a strange one.* → *His story is strange.* - *the fact that* — revise out every occurrence (*owing to the fact that* → *because*; *in spite of the fact that* → *though*; *call your attention to the fact that* → *remind you*; *the fact that he had not succeeded* → *his failure*; *the fact that I had arrived* → *my arrival*). - *who is*, *which was* — usually superfluous (*his brother, who is a member of the same firm* → *his brother, a member of the same firm*). - Collapse clause-chains: combine sequences of short sentences that develop a single thought into one denser sentence. 14. **Vary sentence shapes.** A run of loose, two-clause sentences joined by *and / but / so / who / which* becomes monotonous. Mix simple, periodic, and semicolon-joined forms. 15. **Parallel construction for coordinate ideas.** - *Formerly, science was taught by the textbook method, while now the laboratory method is employed.* → *Formerly, science was taught by the textbook method; now it is taught by the laboratory method.* - Article or preposition before a series: use once before the first item, or repeat before each (*The French, the Italians, the Spanish, and the Portuguese*). - Correlatives (*both/and*, *not/but*, *not only/but also*, *either/or*, *first/second/third*) take matching grammatical parts on both sides. 16. **Keep related words together.** - Don't split subject and verb with a transferable phrase. *Wordsworth, in the fifth book of The Excursion, gives…* → *In the fifth book of The Excursion, Wordsworth gives…* - Relative pronoun follows its antecedent immediately when possible. - Modifiers next to what they modify: *He found only two mistakes*, not *He only found two mistakes*. *Not all the members were present*, not *All the members were not present*. 17. **One tense per summary.** Drama → present. Story/novel/poem → present preferred, past allowed; antecedent action takes the perfect (present-tense summary) or past perfect (past-tense summary). Past tense inside indirect discourse stays past. Don't intercalate *he said*, *the author then adds*. 18. **Place the emphatic words at the end.** The strongest position is sentence-final; second-strongest is sentence-initial. The end-weight rule scales: words within a sentence, sentences within a paragraph, paragraphs within a piece. ## Ch. IV — A few matters of form - **Numerals**: do not spell out dates or serial numbers — *August 9, 1918*; *Rule 3*; *Chapter XII*; *352nd Infantry*. - **Parentheses**: punctuate the outer sentence as if the parenthetical were absent. Punctuate the inner expression as if standalone, but omit its final stop unless it's `?` or `!`. A wholly detached parenthetical sentence keeps its stop *inside* the closing paren. - **Quotations**: - Formal cited quotation → colon + quotation marks. - Quotation in apposition or as direct object → comma + quotation marks. - Quotation introduced by *that* → indirect discourse, no quotation marks. - Verse quotation of a line or more → on its own line(s), centered, no quotation marks. - Proverbial / familiar / colloquial / slang phrases → no quotation marks. - **Titles**: italics with capitalized initials (*The Iliad*, *As You Like It*, *A Tale of Two Cities*). Drop initial *A*/*The* when a possessive precedes (*Dickens's Tale of Two Cities*). - **References**: parenthesize or footnote, don't inline. Abbreviate frequent titles. Omit *act, scene, line, book, volume, page* when at least one is given numerically (*III.ii*, *IV.ii.14*). ## Ch. V — Words and expressions commonly misused (silent substitutions) - **all right** — two words; avoid outside familiar speech. - **as good or better than X** → *as good as X, or better*. - **as to whether** → *whether*. - **bid** — takes infinitive without *to*; past tense (= ordered) is *bade*. - **but** — unneeded after *doubt* and *help* (*I have no doubt but that* → *I have no doubt that*). Avoid stacking *but … But …*; rearrange. - **can** — = able; not a substitute for *may* (= permitted). - **case** — usually deletable (*In many cases, the rooms were poorly ventilated* → *Many of the rooms were poorly ventilated*). - **certainly** — drop as filler intensifier. - **character** — usually redundant (*acts of a hostile character* → *hostile acts*). - **claim** (v.) — only for *lay claim to*; not for *declare*, *maintain*, *charge*. - **clever** — restrict to small-scale ingenuity. - **compare to** = point out resemblance between different orders; **compare with** = point out differences between same order. - **consider** (= *believe to be*) — no *as*. *I consider him competent*, not *as competent*. - **data, phenomena, strata** — plural. *These data were tabulated.* - **dependable** → *reliable*, *trustworthy*. - **different than** → *different from* (or *other than*, *unlike*). - **divided into** ≠ *composed of*. - **don't** = *do not*; **doesn't** = *does not*. Don't substitute one for the other. - **due to** — not for *because of* / *owing to* in adverbial use. Correct: predicate adjective tied to a specific noun (*losses due to preventable fires*). - **effect** (n. = result; v. = bring about) ≠ **affect** (= influence). Drop as vague filler (*subtle effects*, *charming effect*). - **etc.** — never after *such as* / *for example*. Use only when the remainder is obvious. - **fact** — only for matters capable of direct verification. See Rule 13 for *the fact that*. - **factor, feature** — hackneyed; rewrite (*The great factor in his winning was his training* → *He won by being better trained*). - **fix** — colloquial for *arrange/mend*; in writing use only *fasten*, *make firm*. - **folk** — collective, singular form. - **get / have got** → *have*. Participle: *got*. - **he is a man who** — redundant. - **however** (= nevertheless) — never first in its clause. (*However* first means *in whatever way* or *to whatever extent*.) - **interesting** — show, don't announce. - **kind of**, **sort of** — not for *rather*; restrict to literal classification. - **less** vs **fewer**: *less* = quantity; *fewer* = number. Exception: *less than a hundred*-style round numbers. - **like** governs nouns/pronouns; before clauses use *as* (*He thought as I did* — *like me* is OK). - **line**, **along these lines** — overworked; cut. - **literal, literally** — only for actual literalness. - **lose out, try out, win out, sign up, register up** — drop the *out / up*. - **most** ≠ *almost* (*most everybody* → *almost everybody*). - **nature** — usually redundant; otherwise specify the kind of nature meant. - **near by** — as adverb prefer *near* or *near at hand*; as adjective use *neighboring*. - **oftentimes, ofttimes** → *often*. - **one hundred and one** — keep the *and*. - **one of the most** — don't open with it; threadbare. A relative clause after it takes a *plural* verb (*one of the ablest men that have attacked this problem*). - **participle for verbal noun** — possessive before the gerund: *Do you mind my asking?*, *prospect of the Senate's accepting*. (Don't force when meaning targets the subject, not the action.) - **people** (political) ≠ **public** (artistic / commercial). - **phase** — only stage of transition; not *aspect* or *topic*. - **possess** — not a fancy *have* / *own*. - **prove** — past participle *proved*. - **respective, respectively** — usually drop. - **shall / will** — see Era caveats above; do not impose 1918 distinction. - **so** — avoid as bare intensifier (*so good*, *so warm*). - **split infinitive** — avoid (*to diligently inquire* → *to inquire diligently*). - **state** — only *express fully or clearly*; not a substitute for *say*, *remark*. - **student body** → *students*. - **system** — drop when bare (*the dormitory system* → *dormitories*; *the commission system of government* → *government by commission*). - **thanking you in advance** — drop; rewrite as *Will you please…* or *I shall be obliged…*. - **they** — see Era caveats above; do not impose 1918 *he*. - **very** — sparingly; prefer a stronger word. - **viewpoint** → *point of view*; not a synonym for *view* or *opinion*. - **while** — only for *during the time that*. Replace with *and*, *but*, *although*, or a semicolon for the looser senses. - **whom / who** — *whom* only when object. *His brother, who he said would send him the money* (not *whom*). - **worth while** — only of actions, never before a noun. *His books are not worth reading* (not *not worth while*). - **would / should** — 1st-person conditional = *should*. Habitual past: drop *would* and use plain past (*Once a year he visited the old mansion*). ## Ch. VI — Spelling - Modern spelling. Override Strunk on: *today*, *tonight*, *tomorrow* (no hyphen). - Keep two-word forms: *any one*, *every one*, *some one*, *some time* (in the sense "an indefinite period" — but *sometime* meaning "formerly" is one word). - Doubling: a single final consonant (not *v*) preceded by a stressed short vowel doubles before *-ed* / *-ing* — *planned*, *letting*, *beginning*. *Coming* is an exception. - Watch the standard misspelled list: *accidentally, advice, affect, believe, benefit, challenge, coarse, course, criticize, deceive, definite, describe, despise, develop, disappoint, dissipate, ecstasy, effect, embarrass, existence, fascinate, fiery, formerly, humorous, hypocrisy, immediately, impostor, incident, incidentally, latter, led, lose, marriage, mischief, murmur, necessary, occurred, opportunity, parallel, playwright, preceding, prejudice, principal / principle, privilege, pursue, repetition, rhyme, rhythm, ridiculous, sacrilegious, seize, separate, shepherd, siege, similar, simile, too, tragedy, tries, undoubtedly, until, villain*. --- ## Procedure 1. Resolve input: existing file path → Read it; otherwise treat the argument as raw text. 2. Identify and lock preserve-verbatim regions (code, URLs, quotes, tables). 3. Rewrite the remaining prose sentence by sentence. Useful order: 13 (cut) → 10 (active) → 11 (positive) → 12 (concrete) → 3/4/5 (commas, semicolons) → 16 (word order) → 15 (parallelism) → 18 (end-weight) → 7 (danglers) → 14 (vary shapes) → 17 (tense) → 1/2 (apostrophes, series commas) → Ch. V substitutions → Ch. IV form → Ch. VI spelling. 4. Re-stitch preserved regions back in. 5. Print the result. Nothing else.