The mistakes we make: English writing

A english language style quiz. Give it a go. I failed miserably. I should've RTFM. [via a reddit story]

Before the style guide, Orwell's essay on english writing would be a good refresher.

Since you've come this far, you might as well let Strunk give you a good beating.

More like this

10 of 12.

Nine out of twelve, and I'm an English professor. Please don't tell my chair.

11 out of 12 and I disagree with the one they said I got wrong. Of course, I really disagree with a number of their dicta, for instance, that passive is always worse than active. Information Structuring plays a large role in these things: in their sentence which was Topic: UN observers or paramilitaries? Too many sentences with bad information flow is harder to understand than too many passives. (That's not the one I got wrong, that was the one where I used Zeitgeist. I don't care if it's foreign, it's not a synonym for "spirit". Pfft.)

PS - Strunk is okay, White is a crank. He didn't help you pass this, did he? Use something else. Anything else, almost.