[coyotespike]

Easy recent counterexamples include, say, Hilary Mantel, Christopher Hitchens, David Foster Wallace, Helen Dewitt.

Each of these wrote brilliantly, in a style very different to how most people talk. Some of them (Hitchens) wrote deliberately in a "high style," successfully and delightfully. Others are, well, simply themselves - Mantel once noted, "You simply cannot run remedial classes for people on the page."

The plain style often misses the joy of language deployed for its own sake, for play. It can be well done, but it's certainly not the only legitimate style.

I will concede that for most people, writing for most practical purposes, the Strunk & White school which Graham is channelling is probably pretty good advice.