The Elements of Style: "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice"

[agger_modspil]

As for style guides, I used to derive some guilty pleasure from Quiller-Couch’s observations:

Some men are constitutionally incapable of saying no: but the Minister conveys it thus—‘The answer to the question is in the negative.’ That means ‘no.’ Can you discover it to mean anything less, or anything more except that the speaker is a pompous person?—which was no part of the information demanded.