What do you think?
Rate this book
The Elements of F*cking Style: A Helpful Parody
The truth about English is that it can get pretty boring. Dangling modifiers, gerunds, punctuation marks--it's enough to make you want to drop out of high school. Swearing and sex on the other hand, well, these time-honored pastimes warm the cockles of our hearts. Now, The Elements of F*cking Style drags English grammar out of the ivory tower and into the gutter, injecting a dull subject with a much-needed dose of color.
This book addresses everything from common questions ("What the hell is a pronoun?") to philosophical conundrums ("Does not using paragraphs or periods make my thesis read like it was written by a mental patient?"). Other valuable sections
•All I've got in this world are my sentences and my balls, and I don't break 'em for nobody
•A colon is more than an organ that gets cancer
•Words your bound to f*ck up
One glance at your friend's blog should tell you everything you need to know about the sorry state of the English language. This book gives you the tools you need to stop looking like an idiot on message boards and in interoffice memos. Grammar has never before been so much f*cking fun.
This book addresses everything from common questions ("What the hell is a pronoun?") to philosophical conundrums ("Does not using paragraphs or periods make my thesis read like it was written by a mental patient?"). Other valuable sections
•All I've got in this world are my sentences and my balls, and I don't break 'em for nobody
•A colon is more than an organ that gets cancer
•Words your bound to f*ck up
One glance at your friend's blog should tell you everything you need to know about the sorry state of the English language. This book gives you the tools you need to stop looking like an idiot on message boards and in interoffice memos. Grammar has never before been so much f*cking fun.
96 pages, Paperback
First published July 5, 2011
34 people are currently reading
378 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
October 8, 2011
The only reason The Elements of F*cking Style gets two/five instead of one/five is that the premise – a modern-day update of Strunk & White, using relevant, humorous examples and taking technological updates into consideration – receives full marks. The execution, however, receives very low marks.
First of all, the humor is, well, nonexistent. I don’t object to vulgar humor at all – my objection is to vulgarity that isn’t funny. There really wasn’t a single example in the book that made me laugh; in fact, I found them to be so overwhelmingly vulgar as to raise serious questions about the authors. Sex, drugs, and/or swearing were involved in each example, and I was frankly disgusted by the majority of the examples.
Second, even had the examples actually been funny, the book didn’t live up to its premise in the least. Given that the book is supposed to be an update of Strunk & White and that it’s supposed to take technology into account, there were several rules that I expected to see at least discussed, if not updated to reflect today’s usage, but none were.
For example, the rule that commas and full stops always go inside quotation marks, “like this,” has been evolving recently to the more logical style of placing the punctuation outside the quotation marks, “like this”, unless the punctuation belongs to the quotation. A big reason why the more logical style is becoming popular in American English (it’s been the standard in Commonwealth English for a long time) is computers; when writing directions, you need to be exact.
That’s a simplistic example, but you can still see why it’s clearer to leave punctuation that doesn’t belong to what’s being quoted outside the quotation marks. I strongly suspect that within another generation, we’ll have switched to this standard. (“And no,” she clarified, “this discussion doesn’t apply to dialogue in the least.”) But The Elements of F*cking Style simply presents the Strunk & White rule of commas and full stops inside the quotation marks without even hinting that there’s another way.
Similarly, the book doesn’t discuss the optional nature of the Oxford comma, and simply follows Strunk & White’s rule of always including it. I’m pro-Oxford comma myself, but its omission is becoming more and more common in American English, and it is not generally considered incorrect to omit it. And again, this manual is supposed to address technology. On Twitter, your characters are limited, and leaving out the Oxford comma is an easy way to buy a character. Why would a modern manual of style that’s supposed to update a 100-year-old manual not mention that, especially when the authors already said that you can write “Chris’” instead of “Chris’s” if you want to save a character on Twitter?
And finally, I found it quite odd that a manual of style had so many usage errors. There were quite a few places where a non-optional comma was omitted, and several of the examples were confusing. At first, I thought that was intentional, since they were often confusing in mildly humorous ways, but by the end of the book, there had been so many such examples that, combined with the other usage errors I spotted – some of the examples were actually flat-out wrong – I couldn’t help but draw the conclusion that they were unintentional.
In short, I don’t recommend this book at all. The premise is excellent – a manual of style that is updated for today’s technology and uses humorous examples would be a truly outstanding and useful work, particularly if it were appropriate for all audiences – but the execution is just incredibly poor. I’m quite disappointed.
First of all, the humor is, well, nonexistent. I don’t object to vulgar humor at all – my objection is to vulgarity that isn’t funny. There really wasn’t a single example in the book that made me laugh; in fact, I found them to be so overwhelmingly vulgar as to raise serious questions about the authors. Sex, drugs, and/or swearing were involved in each example, and I was frankly disgusted by the majority of the examples.
Second, even had the examples actually been funny, the book didn’t live up to its premise in the least. Given that the book is supposed to be an update of Strunk & White and that it’s supposed to take technology into account, there were several rules that I expected to see at least discussed, if not updated to reflect today’s usage, but none were.
For example, the rule that commas and full stops always go inside quotation marks, “like this,” has been evolving recently to the more logical style of placing the punctuation outside the quotation marks, “like this”, unless the punctuation belongs to the quotation. A big reason why the more logical style is becoming popular in American English (it’s been the standard in Commonwealth English for a long time) is computers; when writing directions, you need to be exact.
In the “Run...” window, type “calc”. Press “Enter”.
That’s a simplistic example, but you can still see why it’s clearer to leave punctuation that doesn’t belong to what’s being quoted outside the quotation marks. I strongly suspect that within another generation, we’ll have switched to this standard. (“And no,” she clarified, “this discussion doesn’t apply to dialogue in the least.”) But The Elements of F*cking Style simply presents the Strunk & White rule of commas and full stops inside the quotation marks without even hinting that there’s another way.
Similarly, the book doesn’t discuss the optional nature of the Oxford comma, and simply follows Strunk & White’s rule of always including it. I’m pro-Oxford comma myself, but its omission is becoming more and more common in American English, and it is not generally considered incorrect to omit it. And again, this manual is supposed to address technology. On Twitter, your characters are limited, and leaving out the Oxford comma is an easy way to buy a character. Why would a modern manual of style that’s supposed to update a 100-year-old manual not mention that, especially when the authors already said that you can write “Chris’” instead of “Chris’s” if you want to save a character on Twitter?
And finally, I found it quite odd that a manual of style had so many usage errors. There were quite a few places where a non-optional comma was omitted, and several of the examples were confusing. At first, I thought that was intentional, since they were often confusing in mildly humorous ways, but by the end of the book, there had been so many such examples that, combined with the other usage errors I spotted – some of the examples were actually flat-out wrong – I couldn’t help but draw the conclusion that they were unintentional.
In short, I don’t recommend this book at all. The premise is excellent – a manual of style that is updated for today’s technology and uses humorous examples would be a truly outstanding and useful work, particularly if it were appropriate for all audiences – but the execution is just incredibly poor. I’m quite disappointed.
September 6, 2011
It makes me sad to state the obvious, but based on a few reviews/comments I've read in places, I'll say it anyway: If you're easily offended, don't read this. The title should be a big clue. Hell, even not-so-easily offended people may find some of the examples a little surprising.
From the beginning, readers are warned about references to sex and drugs. That's not a gimmick, folks, because by god this book is crammed with explicit sentences. I read most of this during lunch in the employee breakroom, and often found myself paranoid that someone might be reading it over my shoulder, getting the education of their lives.
Even when I found myself asking, "Did they really include that?," I didn't find anything to be degrading. Maybe being a gamer chick and just my general nature has jaded me to a lot of vulgarity.
With all of that said, this is a helpful refresher on what I learned in school. Judging by my Facebook and Twitter feeds, a lot of people never learned the rules as presented here (or maybe they're just too busy spamming their social media outlets to care about such things). I recommend the book; it's certainly easier to follow along than some stuffy outdated tome that automatically puts you to sleep five words in. The glossary is especially handy.
Besides, I can honestly say it’s the only book of its kind where I looked forward to examples of sentence structure …
From the beginning, readers are warned about references to sex and drugs. That's not a gimmick, folks, because by god this book is crammed with explicit sentences. I read most of this during lunch in the employee breakroom, and often found myself paranoid that someone might be reading it over my shoulder, getting the education of their lives.
Even when I found myself asking, "Did they really include that?," I didn't find anything to be degrading. Maybe being a gamer chick and just my general nature has jaded me to a lot of vulgarity.
With all of that said, this is a helpful refresher on what I learned in school. Judging by my Facebook and Twitter feeds, a lot of people never learned the rules as presented here (or maybe they're just too busy spamming their social media outlets to care about such things). I recommend the book; it's certainly easier to follow along than some stuffy outdated tome that automatically puts you to sleep five words in. The glossary is especially handy.
Besides, I can honestly say it’s the only book of its kind where I looked forward to examples of sentence structure …
July 26, 2011
So at the beginning, I was going to give this book 5 stars. It's funny, (mostly) grammatically correct...I take argument with a few of their examples, but I am willing to let them go due to common usage flexibility.
About twenty to thirty pages in, I realized that the misogyny of the text isn't merely a gimmick, but is inherent to the writing styles of the authors. The constant degradation of women, intellectuals, drug-users, sex workers, etc., really put me off. The text ends up reading like urbandictionary.com, that is to say like a couple of spoiled, pretentious, over-privileged sixteen-year-old boys wrote it (instead of being written by a couple of spoiled, pretentious, over-privileged college graduates).
I was going to recommend this as a graduation gift for high-school kids in lieu of The Elements of Style, however am concerned that they would think that it is okay to talk like the people who wrote the book, even if it is just slang to use on twitter or facebook (as the authors suggest). Consequentially, I am going to recommend that people read Eats, Shoots and Leaves instead.
About twenty to thirty pages in, I realized that the misogyny of the text isn't merely a gimmick, but is inherent to the writing styles of the authors. The constant degradation of women, intellectuals, drug-users, sex workers, etc., really put me off. The text ends up reading like urbandictionary.com, that is to say like a couple of spoiled, pretentious, over-privileged sixteen-year-old boys wrote it (instead of being written by a couple of spoiled, pretentious, over-privileged college graduates).
I was going to recommend this as a graduation gift for high-school kids in lieu of The Elements of Style, however am concerned that they would think that it is okay to talk like the people who wrote the book, even if it is just slang to use on twitter or facebook (as the authors suggest). Consequentially, I am going to recommend that people read Eats, Shoots and Leaves instead.
August 16, 2011
Very vulgar, but absolutely hilarious! It's the first grammmar/style book that I've read cover to cover!
April 8, 2014
A parody of, not a replacement for, the original. (I thought the subtitle gave it away.) It's a one-trick pony, but an entertaining one.
October 8, 2019
A hilarious take on a classic grammar reference book. I love grammar books!
June 10, 2017
If you couldn't tell from the title, you should not pick this book up if you have sensitive sensibilities. I laughed out loud at multiple points during this read. I shared it with all my friends who teach English (as I do) and we were all amused. It also serves some good reminders for writing conventions and - surprise - style. I even highlighted some parts to come back to regularly and some others that I might clean up a bit to share with my students.
January 15, 2018
Gift from a writer pal that I was inspired to pick up as part of 2018 resolutions to read more about writing! And it was good for my skillz -- more active voice! But it was also sexist and homophobic in the humorous examples and that was a little rough. I powered through for the greater good of improving my writing and it was worth it.
May 17, 2021
At first glance, you may think this book is a joke - but it is not! If you ever read the original "Elements of Style" (also commonly known as "Strunk & White") and found it helpful, you'll appreciate this version. Updated with examples that are...er...more in keeping with current vernacular, it's still grammatically correct and extremely useful.
January 7, 2023
I have mixed feelings about this book. It contains a lot of good information, and the examples (while certainly R-rated) are very clear. However, some of the examples definitely skew misogynistic rather than just vulgar for the sake of humor.
October 13, 2017
May be too vulgar for many tastes.
January 25, 2018
Surprisingly vulgar.
December 11, 2018
The book is a good read for understanding grammar and writing. However, a lot of the sentence and paragraph examples for the specific instances are extremely misogynistic.
August 25, 2021
Over the top
July 20, 2016
This is what happens when two man-children decide it would be hilarious to juxtapose a serious, ``brainy'' topic with naughty words and belligerent anti-intellectualism, but neither actually has the brains or the attention span to pull off the serious part.
The result is a pamphlet ever shorter than Strunk & White itself, in which the authors, more than just being misogynist and racist and all the other things usually associated with fratire (an overly generous term for a genre that tends to lack the introspection needed to be satirical), also come off as arrogant and pretentious, which is something Strunk and White never were—because they actually knew what they were talking about.
The result is a pamphlet ever shorter than Strunk & White itself, in which the authors, more than just being misogynist and racist and all the other things usually associated with fratire (an overly generous term for a genre that tends to lack the introspection needed to be satirical), also come off as arrogant and pretentious, which is something Strunk and White never were—because they actually knew what they were talking about.
March 5, 2016
"A summary with multiple tenses is like a prostitute with multiple reproductive organs - unseemly"
The concept gets old pretty fast. Yes, you're cursing. Neat.
What Red Read:The Elements of F*cking Style: A Helpful Parody by Chris Baker and Jacob Hansen
The concept gets old pretty fast. Yes, you're cursing. Neat.
What Red Read:The Elements of F*cking Style: A Helpful Parody by Chris Baker and Jacob Hansen
October 3, 2011
This is like the Strunk & White for real people. Nasty, filled with swearing and dirty words, but completely accessible and understandable.
Thanks to this "Elements," I can move from a weak sentence to a strong one. Of course, I have to remember some weird drug/sex example to do so, but the point is I *can* remember their example!
Thanks to this "Elements," I can move from a weak sentence to a strong one. Of course, I have to remember some weird drug/sex example to do so, but the point is I *can* remember their example!
June 25, 2014
I really wanted to like this book but the example sentences were so absolutely vulgar I could not get through it. The premise of this book is brilliant and had they toned it down just a little bit I think it would have been an excellent book. I am not easily offended but there are limits to everything. Some of the example sentences in this book made me want to throw up. Way too much.
December 16, 2015
The bro-ish writing style annoyed me, but it probably is appealing for what seems to be the book's primary target audience: frat dudes and people who wouldn't usually give a damn about grammar. Yet, this book goes beyond merely restating Strunk and White with more cursing: it contains useful guidelines for modern writing, and always keeps context in mind.
April 7, 2016
This book is all sorts of gold. The examples will have you smiling (or laughing), and it is a fantastic companion to the original "Elements of Style". There is still a need, even in this age of SMS and e-mail, to be able to use punctuation and grammar correctly. I am by no means perfect, but these two books really help.
October 16, 2015
The vulgarity in this handy dandy grammar and style guide makes me feel like an idiot for mistakes I frequently make. It's sort of like they're punishing readers with language so we don't fuck up as much. Well, writers, it worked. Thanks for that.
November 6, 2014
C'mon. You know you want to give this to the grammar-nazi in your life. Or even better, the grammar resistor you know: what better way to get to know English grammar than through dirty, foulmouthed examples?
August 21, 2011
This was great fun to read, but also very informative. It's going to be required reading for my staff.
September 12, 2011
One thing I learned---"Pronouns are a real bitch." LOL....
October 7, 2011
I LOVED this book. It's a totally geek fest of grammar, but fun because it's completely inappropriate at the same time.
February 5, 2012
Surprisingly helpful, highly amusing, and probably the one thing keeping me sane as I write footnotes for my thesis.
August 19, 2012
Great primer/polisher with a tone that'll keep you laughing and keep your grammar refined!
January 20, 2013
This book is as good as it gets. Short, hilarious and informative, you must pick it up if grammar means anything to you.
February 10, 2013
Good idea, but the execution is belabored.
April 3, 2013
As a high school English teacher, I wish I could use this edition in class. The students may pay attention. I may send it to them in college...
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews