[unraveller]

The Third Edition of Elements of Style (1979) is the most faithful to Strunk's great rhythm and style:

>Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

By the fourth edition (1999) mother modernity knows best. A crock of editors resort to neutering his rules to skirt around them easier, sacrificing all rhythm and possessive clarity:

>This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.