The Elements of Guile, by Bunkum and Tightwad

The following style-guide was written by my late professor Dr. Jenkins Bunkum at old P.U. The laws of Dr. Bunkum's class were both simple and inspiring; think for yourself, be yourself, and follow "my little book" or face summary expulsion and a kiss from the nine-tails. Ah, how we learned! Being the famous children's novelist that I am (humble author of Winona's Nest  and Kris the Ol' Pumpkin) I feel completely secure in revealing his secrets to style, writing, and academic hoodwinkery to the world. Your children have already purchased my books. I can pretty much retire on a big sack of money, mostly extracted from the pockets of tittering malnourished school-children who devour my literary pixie-sticks with the same manic ecstasy that they watch cartoon lizards fight robot koalas. I feel like Dr. Bunkum gave me both the impetus to deceive America's youth, and moreover, the technical skill-set to do so. Note that this is only a guide, and will give you access to mere technical proficiency. You'd have to be a real genius to write like me though. I was born, not made. - T.E. Tightwad.

Rule number 1) Omit needless concision. Excess is the bane of writing. One must be as concise as legally possible. When a police officer stops you, what do you think will get you off the hook: telling him your sob-story about the time Uncle Sordello smacked you with a baguette at the wedding, or answering with a simple "yes officer"? The answer is neither, especially if the question is "do you have any illegal substances on your person". The only language of the law, and it is the same with writing, is baksheesh. Accordingly the real first rule is to work-over your reviewers with gift baskets filled with exotic shampoos named after fruits, and exotic fruits named after diseases. This is the only way.

Rule number 2) Where, wear, weir, or ware? It is important to distinguish between homonyms. However, this is difficult. Therefore, simply avoid using any word that sounds like any other word. This will save you countless grunts of confusion when you are laying out your carefully crafted manuscript for the mongoloid reading public. Do not use homonyms in the vicinity of Conservatives; it affronts their vowel-u system.

Rule number 3) Omit needless letters. Wy bother with loz of uzlez leters? They mrly fil up prcius spac. B cncis.

Rule number 4) Never use a Latinate style when will do just as well a Saxon. Remember that English is a motley, disgusting language. It has absorbed the infected words of foreign influence much like an ingrown toenail, and with as much puss. Latin words are jargony, confusing, and slightly homoerotic. Always prefer the vigour of the Saxon tongue. No homo. Consider for example, the excess verbosity that comes with a penchant for Latino-Gallicism in writing with regards to the following phrase:

"The dirunal motion of bio-phospherescent quintillian has determined that luminescent prescience terminates intermittently; on the other hand, biopsy proliferates the idea that conscience dominates prosperously."

Now, would it not be a pleasant yuk to see how clearly that muddle becomes when we use a simple, basic, vigorous Saxon-based English instead? Observe:

"Brecht iG yog Taggetyme, cutty-open handfull longsee end whales-road and bloodhsield!!! Yagger can, ib  þrashug in stalemate yon gewinnen!!!"

Check-mate.

Rule number 5) The active voice is to be used. Nobody likes a passive-aggressive writer. Women find it repulsive; use a passive construction on a conjugal visit, and I guarantee you will be turned out from the boudoir like a bell-boy with stale bran muffins and a roving eye. But how does one tell the difference between the passive and the active voice? 


A good trick is to pretend that you are writing dispatches for some manly or war-like maneouvre. If it seems too polite or perambulatory for the battlefied, too verbose for getting the attention of your bandillero at the bull-fight, too forced and overwrought to convince to woman in your arms that it is you, you you who she must never forget, you with your deadly musk and devil-may care attitude, you who took that hill and with a half bottle of Chianti and cold spaghetti waiting for you in the rain as your only reward, if there is even the slightest hint of an extra syllable that, in the face of the Revolutionary Tribunal, you use with an incorrect and altogether aristocratic accent of the ancien regime, if, at the guillotine, your words to the crowd are a bit too windy and the guy in the front row screams "off with it already, mate!", if all this is true of the world of manly action, then it is the same for your prose style. 

A note on plagiarism - Do not plagiarize. Plagiarism constitutes the most heinous crime in all of academic Christendom. You will be expelled, tortured, beaten with blackjacks and thrown to the University mascot, Charlie the Insane Baboon, if you so much as incline your head towards a Wikipedia article without the proper citations. 

But what IS plagiarism? And how can you avoid it? Plagiarism is defined as using another's words or ideas without proper citation of your source. In fact, nobody can avoid plagiarism. Did you really think that idea up all by yourself? I'm pretty sure you didn't. You're what, 16? Yea. Even if you can't remember your source, that's plagiarism. Maybe you heard a bum say it on the curb. Maybe I said it. Cite us! When in doubt, cite! And cite properly. One slip up in your footnote, one misplaced comma, and you might as well have handed in a verbatim copy of Wuthering Heights as your final paper. You will be tried and shot fairly.

But that doesn't just mean you can cite everything you copy and call that a paper. Oh no, Mr. Joe. You have to put it in your own words. Did you invent the word "ambition"? No? Then who the fuck do you think you are, just bandying it around like that? Cite! And if you really want to use your own words, do so. Instead of the phrase, "MacBeth has overweening ambition", try "MacGrumbleboo hanks oblledingle clambakeism". See how far that gets you. Putz.