How To Write Good

A list was complied for some magazine by some guy entitled How To Write Good. Naturally, such a statement spawned a lot of problems when people only looked at the title, and failed to capture the humor of the actual list. That happens a lot, doesn't it? I mean, people just don't understand the humor behind something and they get all worked up and their feathers' get wrinkled and it takes the fun out of things.

I can't tell you the number of times I've said something sarcastic in school and the people around me have reacted negatively. Why can't people just learn how to handle sarcasm? Okay... mini-rant is over.

Here follows the 31 bullets that taught me to write good. And you will laugh. Because they are funny.

1. Avoid alliteration always.

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)

4. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

5. Employ the vernacular.

6. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations etc.

7. Parenthetical marks (however relevant) are not necessary.

8. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

9. Contractions aren't necessary.

10. Abhor polysyllabic obfuscations.

11. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

12. One should never generalize.

13. Be more or less specific

14. Elimination quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

15. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.

16. Understatement is always best.

17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

18. One word sentences? Simple! Eliminate.

19. Analogies are like feathers on a snake.

20. Even if a mixed metaphors signs, it should be derailed.

21. The passive voice is to be avoided.

22. Who needs rhetorical questions?

23. It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.

24. Don't use hyperbole: not one writer in a million can use it effectively.

25. Subject and verb always has to agree.

26. Don't indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.

27. Don't use no double negatives!

28. B sur too schpell cheque, and watch four grammer errors'

29. No sentence fragments!

30. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
31. And remember finish what

I'm going to go chase butterflies now.