How to Write Good

(adapted, with editions, from the Beacon, Boston's monthly Mensa
newsletter, ca.1982)

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat).
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. One should never generalize.
10. Foreign words and phrases are not a propos.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate
    quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary. It's highly
    superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Adingl "ly" to words can be overly done. Use sparingly.
22. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
23. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
24. The period. An often overused puntuation mark. Should never be used
    in place of commas. Obviously.
25. Logograms aren't worth a $.
26. Anadiplosis is unnecessary--unnecessary and affected.
27. The argument concerning logomachy continues.
28. Cleave to logodaedaly, and you cleave yourself from clarity.
29. The use of anacoluthon should be eschewed, as she ain't too subtle.
30. You can't be too amphibolous.
31. Why be captious when quiddity will serve?
32. Palinodes should never--no, forget that, I take it back.
33. Don't never use double negatives.
34. Don't spoose unerisms.
35. Remember that humor is nothing to be laughed at.
36. There are exceptions to every rule, except this one.
37. The true fact is that pleonasms aren't good, as you can see with
    your own eyes.
38. Neophytes who are just starting and beginners should watch out for
    tautologies.
39. Neologisms are absolutely gronky.
40. It doesn't make sense to use alogisms, and your nose will fall off.
41. Who needs rhetorical questions?
42. Don't verbify nouns.