The connotations that can arise in connection with the word style appear to be virtually infinite in their diversity. Let us review a few of the more obvious, all of them drawn for the moment from outside music. We hear talk about style in sports—about a jumper's style or a runner's style. This implies a certain effi- ciency, directness, and even elegance. Obviously, it also implies a high degree of competence. In some kinds of sports, we hear about players who are exceedingly confident but who are said to have no style. I myself, for example, have neither competence nor style on a tennis court; but were I even confident, I would still have no style. I am not even one of those who make an eternal spectacle of themselves but who do manage to win games.

Style in literature resembles what we were talking about in sports. It also has to do with mastery of language and with efficiency in the manipulation of ideas. One can say, “He has learned a style” or “He has learned to write with style.” One can also say, “He has learned a style of writing” or “He writes in the style of ___.”

Perhaps the lowliest and most unequivocal connotation of the word style is its use in printing. The Chicago Manual of Style has nothing to do with elegance. It has principally to do with a certain standard of consistency. If you want to know whether to put something in Roman or italics, or how to use punctuation, you look it up in a manual of style.

Style in architecture can be both general and specific. It can be said that a building has style. It can be said that it lacks it. But when we talk about style in architecture, we are most often pulled into another category, and that is the category of styles. Style is one thing, styles are another. Styles have to do with manners and convention. It is clear that the history of architecture is studded with historical styles, to which over the centuries every kind of lip service and, very often, homage in the form of reproduction, has been paid. To speak of an incongruity of style in architecture usually refers to the mixing up of the characteristics of two or more well-established vocabularies of style.