by Frank L. Visco

My several years in the word  game have learnt me several rules:

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are  not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliche 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. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As  Ralph Waldo Emerson once 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. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a  mixed metaphor sings,it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?