[curiousess]

That article for the Chronicle of Higher Education is so wrongheaded it's hilarious.

""Keep related words together" is further explained in these terms: "The subject of a sentence and the principal verb should not, as a rule, be separated by a phrase or clause that can be transferred to the beginning." That is a negative passive, containing an adjective, with the subject separated from the principal verb by a phrase ("as a rule") that could easily have been transferred to the beginning."

Yes. That's the joke, dear Geoffrey. They are showing the violation to demonstrate its effect on a sentence. You have to be truly humorless if not willfully obtuse to read this as Strunk & White having no idea what they're talking about.

Strunk & White is self-critiquing, which is part of what makes it great—it's not nearly so prescriptive as the author seems to think.