---
title: "William Safire's Rules for Writers"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/1/william-safires-rules-for-writers.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/1/william-safires-rules-for-writers.html"
published: "2005-07-01T19:45:00"
updated: "2005-07-01T19:45:00"
tags: ["Off Topic"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "I found a quite funny tidbit today by reading the weekend papers, where it was translated into Hebrew. The English source is pretty nice as well!: William Safire's Rules for Writers : Remember to never split an…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# William Safire's Rules for Writers

By Roy Osherove July 1, 2005 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

**Historical article** · Originally published July 1, 2005; technical details may be outdated.

I found a quite funny tidbit today by reading the weekend papers, where it was translated into Hebrew. The English source is pretty nice as well!:

**William Safire's [Rules for Writers](http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/protein/pert/safire.rules.html):**

1. Remember to never split an infinitive.
2. The passive voice should never be used.
3. Do not put statements in the negative form.
4. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
5. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
6. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
7. A writer must not shift your point of view.
8. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
9. Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
10. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
11. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
12. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
13. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
14. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
15. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
16. Always pick on the correct idiom.
17. The adverb always follows the verb.
18. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

## More in Off Topic

[All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

- Jul 3, 2005

    ### [Congratulations, Ohad. Twofold!](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/3/congratulations-ohad-twofold.html)

- Jul 1, 2005

    ### [Dictionellisense](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/1/dictionellisense.html)

- Jul 1, 2005

    ### [Nice PDC Contest Entry from Steve Hebert](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/1/nice-pdc-contest-entry-from-steve-hebert.html)

- Jun 30, 2005

    ### [Who's reading me?](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/30/whos-reading-me.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

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### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/