1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies endlessly over and over again
10. No sentence fragments.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous and can be excessive
14. All generalizations are bad.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Avoid excessive use of ampersands & abbrevs., etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake (Unless they are as good as gold).
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words, however, should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when substituting a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Don』t overuse exclamation points!!!
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas
26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed and use it correctly with words』 that show possession.
27. Don』t use too many quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations.. Tell me what you know."
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
35. People don』t spell "a lot" correctly alot of the time.
36. Each person should use their possessive pronouns correctly
37. All grammar and spelling rules have exceptions (with a few exceptions)....Morgan』s Law.
38. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
39. The dash C a sometimes useful punctuation mark C can often be overused C even though it』s a helpful tool some of the time.
40. Proofread carefully to make sure you don』t repeat repeat any words.
43. In good writing, for good reasons, under normal circumstances, whenever you can, use prepositional phrases in limited numbers and with great caution.
51. Note: People just can't stomach too much use of the colon.
Editor's note
This list is based on material collected by me over the past 20 years while teaching. Additions have come from the collections or creations of fellow teachers, friends, and visitors to the Creative Teaching Web Site. The rules I've obtained from outside sources were created by people I know, or were identified as written anonymously, or gave no indication of authorship. Many are my own original creations.
However, a recent visitor to the Creative Teaching Web Site informed me that some of the rules were originally part of or based on work by William Safire in his book Fumble-Rules. One web site suggests that some of them may also have appeared in a New York Times Magazine article by Mr. Safire, in which case credit for some of these rules goes to Mr. William Safire. I'm looking for a copy of Fumble-Rules and I've written to Mr. Safire seeking confirmation and permission to include any that are his creations.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=c ... +humorous&hl=en作者: weiguang 時間: 2005-8-17 23:27
原文中的 2. Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
不如我的版本好：Never use a preposition to end a sentence unless you have
to作者: weiguang 時間: 2005-9-22 03:24
這些話的幽默之處在於陳述每一條規則的話都是違反這一規則的。美國國務院的雜誌
曾有篇文章搜集了不少這類句子。作者: Adelyn 時間: 2005-9-22 09:22
i first read these funny sentences in the famed website bilinguist.com 漢英. 古月 posted them to entertain the forumites. every sentence advises a do-not but turns out to have done exactly that thing! the author is a very smart guy.作者: weiguang 時間: 2005-9-22 09:34
I used to visit a bilinguist website called 漢英論壇。Same one?作者: Adelyn 時間: 2005-9-22 11:50
yes. it is. gu yue, tian xin, yeti, etc are/were the stars there.