Strunck and White's Breezy Cow

"At this point, you may well pattern yourself on the fully exposed cow of Robert Louis Stevenson' rhyme. This friendly and commendable animal, you may recall, was 'blown by all the winds that pass/ And wet with all the showers`' And so must you as a young writer be. In our modern idiom, we would say you must get 'wet all over.' Mr. Stevenson, working in a plainer style, said it with felicity, and suddenly one cow, out of so many, received the gift of immortality. Like the steadfast writer, she is at home in the wind and the rain; and, thanks to one moment of felicity, she will live on and on and on."

These are the concluding remarks of the timeless classic and invaluable grammatical and stylistic guidebook The Elements of Style, by William Strunck and E. B. White. And while I firmly believe that this is the most inspiring and beautiful passage in all English literature, I have several comments about the grammatical questionability of this sage advice, which naturally don't serve to diminish the ringing quality of the passage but may cast some doubt on the ability of the book's authors to fully follow its own advice:

First of all, did you recall that friendly and commendable animal? Because I sure didn't. Secondly, since when is "wet all over" a MODERN idiom? Number three, is felicity really the adjective he was searching for? Or could he just not think of anything else? Fourth and lastly, what are the other "many" cows out of which this ostensibly famous cow was drawn? My fifth question: how do we know she was at home in the wind and rain. I think this is rather assumptive. Sixth of all, don't all the references to wind and rain make this paragraph rather breezy? Seventh, is the use of the semi-colon in the last sentence condoned by S+W? Eighthly, on and on and on is not traditional usage and makes for a lack of clear diction. A simple on and on would be more concise, and a mere on would have been positively vigorous! But I believe the main point of that paragraph can be summed up in one strong and telling point: "Moo!"

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