Dresden: Many excellent writers thoroughly despise Strunk & White. They think it is full of horrible advice, and is far too prescriptive, although I doubt that any would claim that every bit of advice therein is bad. Certainly it is sensible to pick and choose.

As for the Chicago Manual, that is not just advice. If you are writing something to be published by University of Chicago Press, or another publisher that uses Chicago style, you have to do things their way. However, it does not follow that their way is better, and other publishers may insist on something different (or may trust the author’s judgement).

You are right about the dash, though. It is not a good thing to overuse.

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I take issue to someone’s stating: “The Elements of Style is a good book, but the CMoS is a higher authority.”

While this may literally be the case; the literary community commonly accepts TEoS, and it is recommended reading in a lot of cases.

I have had instructors attempt to teach some of Strunk & White, picking and choosing, while disregarding the rest. I believe this is foolhardy; one should stick to a manual of style either wholly or not at all. One should choose the accepted manual that best fits their own style.

So again, to the original poster:

It is a matter of style.

I would much prefer an auteur misusing a device, as long as they are consistent, to an auteur overusing a device.

My girlfriend reads the “Twilight” series, and is often confused by a classic Stephanie Meyer usage of the dash. It may just be my bias, I hate to use dashes, but Stephanie is murdering the dash throughout her series.

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I was re-reading Strunk and White’s “The Elemsnts of Style” and found the following entry for ‘while’ in the chapter “Misused Words and Expressions”:

“While. Avoid the indiscriminate use of this word for and, but, and although. Many writers use it frequently as a substitute for and or but, either from a mere desire
to vary the connective, or from uncertainty which of the two connectives is the more appropriate. In this use it is best replaced by a semicolon.”

That’s good punctuation advice, even if it does “bury the lead.”

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However, many postings betray confusion over the proper usage of colons and semicolons. Each has multiple uses, but the misunderstanding here is which one to use between independent clauses. There is a simple way to understand the distinction. (I am resisting the urge to use a colon after that sentence.) A colon joins two clauses; a semicolon separates them.

There is more to it than that, of course. A colon indicates that the second clause follows from the first in a definite manner. It may be from premise to conclusion, from general to specific, or from cause to effect. A semicolon separates clauses that are too distinct for a mere comma yet too closely related to live separately, each in its own sentence.

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http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch06/ch06_sec063.html
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch06/ch06_sec064.html

The Elements of Style is a good book, but the CMoS is a higher authority. Wikipedia’s article on “Style Guide” refers to EoS as a work for the “general public”.

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