ABSTRACT
This is an introduction for the nonspecialist to the kind of things which nowadays are studied under the heading of ‘style’. No attempt has been made to define style, or to adjudicate among the very many different conceptions of it, or its relations to the central concerns of linguistics, to psychology, social theory or literature. Definitions can come later. The priority here is to give the reader a taste of what writers on style do, and of the different tactics they may adopt.
