Strunk opera

I’d say this pretty much sums up everything Electric Counterpoint is about: We’ve got didactic language rules, we’ve got avante garde music — hell, because the The Elements of Style is in the public domain, we’ve even got intellectual property law.

It seems that a modern opera is being performed at the New York Public Library. It seems further that the work’s lyrics are derived wholly from Strunk and White’s guide to capital-P Proper use of the English language. “[Composer Nico] Muhly’s work is more in the minimalist-modernist mold of Philip Glass and Steve Reich but with an absurdist dash of Spike Jones.” Indeed!

Boing Boing is excited, though I would take issue with their off-handed appositive, reviewing the book in question as “a brilliant, indispensable text for anyone who wants to write clearly and well.” I shouldn’t be so absolutist, though: it all depends on whose definition of “clearly and well” you’d like your writing appraised under. If you’re writing to Gilded Age linguistic pedants, well, Strunk will get you by nicely.

(Readers interested in a review of The Elements of Style more in keeping with my own linguistic agenda are directed to the more relevant section of my blogroll: Language Log has published a number of takes.)

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