I love style manuals. Ever since I was assigned Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style in an introductory psychology course, the writing guide has been among my favorite literary genres. Source
I am thinking over the exact meaning of "I was assigned" in my sentence. Although I checked out the dictionaries, none of the possible meanings does not make much sense. The one and only alternative that I find as being suitable is the meaning "to give out as a task". So the author says that at the university – maybe within a seminar – he had to deal with the textbook on style. Am I right?
Best Answer
"The Elements of Style" is a book by Strunk & White.
The verb assign is used in many senses. Speaking in the context, it has two senses as follows:
To give or allot someone something to use.
To give someone a job or task as part of their duty or course of study.
As the book was given to you to study in your introductory course, it's most probably a task given as part of your studies. So the sentence means as follows:
Ever since I was given the task of reading/studying Strunk & White's book "The Elements of Style" in an introductory psychological course, ......