规则16 使用明确、具体、有形的语言[rule-16]

宁用具体而非笼统，宁用明确而非含糊，宁用有形而非抽象。

误：A period of unfavorable weather set in.
正：It rained every day for a week.

误：He showed satisfaction as he took possession of his well-earned reward.
正：He grinned as he pocketed the coin.

如果研究写作艺术的人在任何一个问题上有一致意见，那就是这一点：唤起并抓住读者注意力的最可靠方式，是写得具体、明确、有形。最伟大的作家——荷马、但丁、莎士比亚——之所以有力，很大程度上是因为他们处理具体的个别事物，报道要紧的细节。他们的文字能唤起画面。

让·斯塔福德，举一位更为现代的作家为例，在她的短篇小说《在动物园里》中展示了散文如何通过使用能唤起意象和感觉的词而变得生动：

… Daisy and I in time found asylum in a small menagerie down by the railroad tracks. It belonged to a gentle alcoholic ne'er-do-well, who did nothing all day long but drink bathtub gin in rickeys and play solitaire and smile to himself and talk to his animals. He had a little, stunted red vixen and a deodorized skunk, a parrot from Tahiti that spoke Parisian French, a woebegone coyote, and two capuchin monkeys, so serious and humanized, so small and sad and sweet, and so religious-looking with their tonsured heads that it was impossible not to think their gibberish was really an ordered language with a grammar that someday some philologist would understand. Gran knew about our visits to Mr. Murphy and she did not object, for it gave her keen pleasure to excoriate him when we came home. His vice was not a matter of guesswork; it was an established fact that he was half-seas over from dawn till midnight. "With the black Irish," said Gran, "the taste for drink is taken in with the mother's milk and is never mastered. Oh, I know all about those promises to join the temperance movement and not to touch another drop. The way to Hell is paved with good intentions."

如果沃尔特·米蒂、莫莉·布卢姆、兔子·安格斯特罗姆的经历曾在一瞬间对无数读者显得真实，如果读福克纳时我们几乎有身处南方衰落时期约克纳帕塔法县的感觉，那是因为所用的细节是明确的，措辞是具体的。并不是说每个细节都给出——那既不可能，也毫无意义——而是说所有重要的细节都给出了，而且准确有力，使读者能够在想象中把自己投射到场景之中。

在说明文和论说文中，写作者同样绝不能脱离具体；即使在处理一般原理时，写作者也必须提供这些原理应用的具体实例。

赫伯特·斯宾塞在《文体哲学》中给出两个句子，说明含糊笼统的内容如何能转变为生动具体的内容：

误：In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of its penal code will be severe.
正：In proportion as men delight in battles, bullfights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning, and the rack.

为了展示当有力的文字被剥夺了活力会发生什么，乔治·奥威尔曾从《圣经》中取出一段文字，抽干了它的血。下面左边是奥威尔的译文；右边是《传道书》的经文（钦定本）。

奥威尔译文：Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must inevitably be taken into account.
《传道书》：I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.