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pedanterrific comments on Rhetoric for the Good - Less Wrong
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Am I the only one that sees something wrong with this?
You mean that the end of sentences should feature words with the biggest impact?
For example "The answer turns out to be A, not B" is usually better as "The answer turns out to be not B but A".
And often still better as "The answer turns out to be A."
And sometimes even better as "The answer is A." And on occasion as "A."
How about
But then
With the aid of explicit emphasis, I don't see any need.
I think "end" is the most important word here (though it maybe isn't the most "impacting"), and it is about as close to the end as it can be.
"When constructing sentences, put the most important word at the end."
But my initial point was mostly that "the most impacting words" is a really awkward and unclear construction. And I think the disagreement in the responses to my comment as to which word would be the "most impacting" (and precisely what that means) rather bears me out.
I agree. (I mistook your point.)
Edit: Joseph Williams (who wrote Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, which lukeprog mentioned in the original post) has a subtler version of this rule:
That's from page 48 of his Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, which I think blows Strunk and White out of the water. (I believe it's a different book from the one lukeprog mentioned, though if so I'm sure they cover similar material.)
Often the best version of a sentence has the high impact word as either the first or last word of the sentence.