Taken from alt.usage.english:


This is a compilation of items from a fortune-cookie file.  
Most of them are from William Safire's "fumblerules":


Remember to never split an infinitive.  The passive voice should never be
used.  Do not put statements in the negative form.  Don't use contractions
in formal writing, and don't use no double negatives.  It is incumbent on
one to avoid archaisms.  Proofread carefully to see if you words out or
incorect speling.  It has come to our considered attention that in a large
majority of cases, far too many people use a great deal more words than is
absolutely necessary when engaged in the practice of writing sentences.  If
you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of redundant
repetition can be stamped out and removed by rereading and editing.

A writer must not shift your point of view.  If the writer is considerate
of the reader, he won't have a problem with ambiguous sentences.  Don't
write a run-on sentence its hard to read you must punctuate it.  If a
dependent clause precedes an independent clause put a comma after the
dependent clause.  But avoid commas, that are not necessary, and don't
overuse exclamation marks!!!  Use the semicolon properly, always use it
where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.  Reserve the apostrophe
for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.  In particular, do not
use apostrophe's for plural's.  In statements involving two word phrases,
make an all out effort to use hyphens, but make sure you hyp-
henate properly.

Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.  Always pick on the
correct idiom.  Avoid colloquial stuff, and trendy locutions that sound
flaky.  Also, avoid all awkward or affected alliteration.  Unqualified
superlatives are the worst of all.  Beware of and eschew pompous prolixity,
and avoid the utilization of enlarged words when shortened ones are
sufficient.  Avoidification of neologisms strengthenifies your
prosification.  It is not resultful to transform one part of speech into
another by prefixing, suffixing, or other alterings.  Perform a functional
iterative analysis on your work to root out third generation transitional
buzz words.  Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck into
the language.  The de facto use of foreign phrases vis-a-vis plain English
in your written tete-a-tetes makes the sentence harder to understand.

Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in
their writing.  Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long
sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.  Writing
carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.  One will not have needed
the future perfect tense in one's entire life.  If any word is improper at
the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.  Write all adverbial forms
correct.  Don't verb nouns.  Verbs has to agree with their subjects, and
the adverb always follows the verb.  This sentence no verb.  Which is not a
complete sentence, but merely a subordinate clause.  A preposition is
something you should never end a sentence with.  And don't start a sentence
with a conjunction.

Last but not least, avoid dyed-in-the-wool cliches like the plague; seek
viable alternatives.