Strunk and White: First Impressions

I really like this book. In fact, I like it so much that I am considering buying it for future use as I am currently borrowing it from my local library. If I were following the rules of the book I would not have started the second sentence with the words "in fact". Strunk and White believes this is unnecessary. I disagree with him. I think it makes it makes the previous sentence stronger.

One of the rules in the book that I strongly agree with is to use orthodox spelling. I think one of my biggest pet peeves is misspelled and loosely spelled words. Even if a person is just writing a casual blog, they should spell correctly.

I think the rule that I follow most is: Do not overwrite. I believe texts should be written to the point without added nonsense meant to fill up the page. I rarely read novels because they are usually filled with pages and pages of adjectives and other nonsense. It bores me to read books written in that fashion.

When reading the book I didn't see too much that seemed out of date. Perhaps my ideas of grammar rules are out of date. I did see one particular word that he preferred people not use contradict an earlier rule.

The book says that instead of using the word currently is redundant and that one should use a more precise reference of time. The example used is:

We are currently reviewing your application
We are at this moment reviewing your application

The latter sentence being the preferred sentence. This, however, contradicts the rule: Omit needless words. currently and at this moment mean the same thing. So according to his first rule we should omit needless words. These words would be at this moment. We could replace those words with currently and say the same thing.