Back to the Basics - Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style"

In September I posted about good reference books for writers. You'd think I would take my own advice, but after editing the first "section" of my manuscript it became obvious I hadn't. I wrote on the biggest Post-It on my person to jog my memory,

Re-read Strunk & White ASAP!

and so this morning as I organised my desk it stared up at me. I made some good coffee (Monsieur Redacteur being a practical man often just drinks instant in lieu of using the French press or cafetière, which takes more time to make) and Monsieur Redacteur fished out a copy of The Elements of Style.

I once had five copies of this book in various editions. I now only own three copies, each a different edition- though quite honestly I wish I hadn't spent so much time nitpicking on which edition was better than which - mostly because there were so many copies for sale on Amazon. For just about anyone the 1999 fourth edition is more than adequate.

That is, if you want to purchase it at all. There are those who think The Elements of Style isn't actually good advice at all. Here are extras on the subject that are worth a look: 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice and a forum where the book's merits or lack thereof are hotly debated on StackExchange.

I get the feeling Monsieur Redacteur isn't a fan of the book either because when I read this bit in The Elements of Style to him he said it was pretty much "useless" to me because I'm writing a "narrative".

II. Elementary Principles of Compostion

17. In summaries, keep to one tense.

In summarizing the action of a drama, the writer should use the present tense.  In summarizing a poem, story, or novel, he should use the present, though he may use the  past if it seems more natural to do so.  If the summary is in the present tense, antecedent action should be expressed by the perfect, if in the past, by the past perfect.

Now I didn't really understood what that meant mostly because the "perfect" doesn't exist in  French. 
I asked Monsieur Redacteur to explain it and he gave me the following chart at the back of some Engish grammar book he uses to teach.

Here are the important bits of the chart:

Present perfect (I have done)
Present perfect and past (I have done and I did)

There is no future tense in English (no conjugation of the verb).  You have to use I will or I'm going to.

Past continuous (I was going)
Past continuous (I was doing) and past simple (I did)
Past perfect (I had done)

Since I sort of understand it and sort of don't, I'll be attending Monsieur Redacteur's Sunday English class. The sole other student will be 9 years old. I'll update to let you know who gets it first. The 9 year old native French-Dutch speaker or me the 30-cough-something native Korean-French speaker.

My money's on the kid.

I just discovered this article on The New York Times website  when I was looking for a picture I remembered of E.B. White's typewriter with The Elements of style. It's definitely worth a read.