Meaning of “Use definite, specific, concrete language.”

The rule favors direct sentence construction when it makes agency clearer, while the surrounding discussion still allows passive voice when context requires it.

Conciseness is treated as removal of words that do no useful work, not as a demand that every sentence be short or stripped of necessary detail.

Strunk links force with economy: prose becomes stronger when each word contributes to the sentence rather than merely increasing its length.

Placing modifiers and connected elements near one another reduces ambiguity and makes the grammatical relationships in a sentence easier to understand.

Strunk recommends stating what is true or intended directly when possible instead of making the reader reconstruct the point from repeated negation.

Sentence order can create emphasis, and Strunk recommends reserving the strongest final position for the element the sentence most needs the reader to retain.