The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

This book offers a very thoughtful look at how good writing actually works. Steven Pinker explains grammar, style, and clarity in a way that feels logical and accessible rather than overly technical. I especially liked the discussion about how good writing should focus on helping the reader understand ideas clearly. The book combines linguistics, psychology, and practical writing advice, which makes it both interesting and useful. It’s not just about grammar rules but about developing clearer thinking and communication. Overall, an excellent read for anyone who wants to improve their writing.

Steven Pinker’s <I>The Sense of Style</I> fits into the tradition of style guides that began with Fowler and continues up through Bryan Garner. It will inevitably be compared with Willard Stunk and E. B. White’s <I>Elements of Style</I>, that sputnik-era Seussification of grammar and style. But the real comparison is with Joseph Williams’s excellent, but somewhat dated, book <I>Style: Towards Clarity and Grace</I>, one of the first works to blend linguistics and style. Pinker adopts and updates some of Williams’s insights (with all due acknowledgment of course) and connect them even more closely to current research in psycholinguistics and grammar. Chapters 1-3 warm the reader up, with Pinker’s characteristic charm and good humor. In Chapter 1, “Good Writing,” Pinker reverse engineers (as he puts it) several examples of clear exposition, showing the value of simply thinking through what works in writing—strong starts, fresh idioms and diction, occasional playfulness, use of rhythm and meter, attention to the reader’s vantage point. Chapter 2, “A Window on the World,” bring in the work of Francis-Noël Thomas and Mark Turner (in their book <I>Clear and Simple as the Truth</I>) which defines “the classic style.” That is the style which draws its strength from the writer’s helping the reader see the world in a new way. Strong writers show the informed reader with narrative, explanation and examples that meet the readers where they are. That is opposed of course to the academic (and especially post-modern style) and Pinker finds no dearth of examples to illustrate the difference. In Chapter 3, “The Curse of Knowledge,” Pinker explains the problem of specialists who are unable to see the world as their readers see it and thus over-complicate their prose with jargon, nominalizations, abbreviations, unexplained assumptions, and other insider shortcuts. Chapter 4 “The Web, The Tree, and the String” is a long chapter (really, it’s pages 76-138) on syntax. Pinker’s basic point here is that syntax is our tool for putting organization to thought and, moreover, that thinking about sentences as structured entities (modelled by tree diagrams) rather than simple flat strings of words can give us a richer outlook on many problems of style. It’s a fine chapter for linguists, but general readers may struggle a bit here. As more than one readers has noted, here Pinker himself seems to fall victim to the curse of knowledge. Chapter 5 “Arcs of Coherence” is another long chapter (pages 139-186) in which Pinker shows how writers build (or don’t build) coherence in sentences and paragraphs. Coherence involves carefully attending to the reader’s knowledge and to the pattern a writer develops through parallelism, consistency of diction, integration new ideas into ones just introduced, and continual focus on the point of the prose. Chapter 6, “Telling Right from Wrong,” is not so much a chapter as a separate style guide making up about a third of the book. Here Pinker gleefully takes on many the traditional rules and folk rules of English grammar, separating them into broad categories of grammar; quantity, quality and degree; diction; and punctuation. He explains, refines or corrects the traditional takes on grammar, doing so in a way will warm the heart of anyway who has ever been scolded by an ignoramus and capture the interest of the open-minded. Don’t skip the style guide; it’s got some gems on <I>fewer</I> vs. <I>less</i>, restrictive and non-restrictive, fused participles, and the use of commas. <I>The Sense of Style</I> has a few flaws (the curse of knowledge, for one) and it might have been shorter in chapters 4 and 5. But overall it is a fine book, well written and well thought out, by someone who not only cares about language but cares about the facts.

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker The Sense of Style is a scholarly and witty book on the art of writing well. Bestselling author, linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker provides readers with a new writing-guide for the twenty-first century. He breaks down grammar rules and challenges purists on the best use of language. This challenging 368-page book includes the following six chapters: 1. Good Writing, 2. A Window onto the World, 3. The Curse of Knowledge, 4. The Web, the Tree, and the String, 5. Arcs of Coherence, and 6. Telling Right from Wrong. Positives: 1. Dr. Pinker consistently produces quality work. 2. A "very" unique topic, the art of writing well from a scientific perspective. You don't have to read the book to get my joke. 3. Good use of wit that adds panache to a book about writing style. 4. Good advice throughout the book. "By replacing dogma about usage with reason and evidence, I hope not just to avoid giving ham-fisted advice but to make the advice that I do give easier to remember than a list of dos and don'ts." 5. Explains the three main reasons why style matters. 6. Provides insights on how to become a good writer. "Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose." 7. Supports good style over writing dogma. "The key to good style, far more than obeying any list of commandments, is to have a clear conception of the make-believe world in which you're pretending to communicate." "The purpose of writing is presentation, and its motive is disinterested truth. It succeeds when it aligns language with the truth, the proof of success being clarity and simplicity." 8. The characteristics of classic style. "A writer of classic prose must simulate two experiences: showing the reader something in the world, and engaging her in conversation." 9. Provides many examples of what constitutes poor prose: "Metadiscourse, signposting, hedging, apologizing, professional narcissism, clichés, mixed metaphors, metaconcepts, zombie nouns, and unnecessary passives." 10. Hanlon's Razor, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Excellent explanation on how the curse of knowledge may lead to poor prose. "The curse of knowledge is the single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose." 11. Ways on how to improve your prose. "Good prose is never written by a committee." Think about that. 12. The importance of understanding syntax. "Finally, an awareness of syntax can help you avoid ambiguous, confusing, and convoluted sentences. All of this awareness depends on a basic grasp of what grammatical categories are, how they differ from functions and meanings, and how they fit into trees." 13. Interesting insights on how our minds work and how that knowledge benefits good writing. "English syntax demands subject before object. Human memory demands light before heavy. Human comprehension demands topic before comment and given before new." 14. How to construct coherent passages longer than a sentence. "In fact, it's the hunger for coherence that drives the entire process of understanding language." 15. Discusses principles of composition. "An important principle in composition is that the amount of verbiage one devotes to a point should not be too far out of line with how central it is to the argument. " 16. Discusses good use of grammar, word choice, and punctuation. Starts off by debunking the myth that all traditional rules must be followed for dogma's sake. "That's right: when it comes to correct English, there's no one in charge; the lunatics are running the asylum. The editors of a dictionary read a lot, keeping their eyes open for new words and senses that are used by many writers in many contexts, and the editors add or change the definitions accordingly. Purists are often offended when they learn that this is how dictionaries are written." 17. Presents a list of common usage issues. "These are the ones that repeatedly turn up in style guides, pet-peeve lists, newspaper language columns, irate letters to the editor, and inventories of common errors in student papers." Great stuff. 18. Includes notes, glossary and a formal bibliography. Negatives: 1. This book is intended for writers, not for laypersons. You must possess good command of the English language and grammar in order for this book to make sense. The grammar jargon will overwhelm the average reader. 2. The book's formatting leads to confusion. For a book predicated on clarity, many times I was lost. 3. The writing may come across as pretentious. 4. I wanted more neuroscience. In summary, there is a direct correlation between the number of stars this book deserves and your expertise on the subject. English majors and writers will give this book either four or five stars. On the other hand, laypersons will struggle with it to say the least. I'm giving this book four stars because even though my engineering brethren balks at reading such a book the avid reader in me recognizes its value. Writers will enjoy this book while the rest will struggle with it. Further recommendations: " The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition " by William Strunk Junior, " On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction " by William Zinsser, " A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Seventh Edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) " by Kate L. Turabian, " The Only Grammar Book You'll Ever Need: A One-Stop Source for Every Writing Assignment " by Susan Thurman and Larry Shea, " Book Writing Mistakes (How To Avoid The Top 12 Mistakes New Business Book Authors Make) " by Jim Edwards, " How to Write Great Blog Posts that Engage Readers (Better Blog Booklets Book 1) " by Steve Scott, " English Grammar For Dummies " by Geraldine Woods, and " Grammar Girl's Punctuation 911: Your Guide to Writing it Right (Quick & Dirty Tips) " by Mignon Fogarty.

How refreshing to read a style book that operates on actual style rather than a preconceived list of must-haves. Pinker uses the logic of expression, an historical view of changes in language, and an ACTUAL definition of style to offer up a thoughtful book that presents and exemplifies clear, simple and accurate expression. Also marvelous for its humor, using cartoons as well as references to The Princess Bride, Spinal Tap and Monty Python as suitable examples. While not quite a sit-down-and-read primer, going back over passages I'd underlined was just as worthwhile. Just check out this explanation of classic style, the idea he orients his presentation around: "The guiding metaphor of classic style is seeing the world. The writer can see something that the reader has not yet noticed, and he orients the reader's gaze so that she can see it for herself. The purpose of writing is presentation, and its motive is disinterested truth. It succeeds when it aligns language with the truth, the proof of success being clarity and simplicity. The truth can be known, and is not the same as the language that reveals it: prose is a window onto the world. The writer knows the truth before putting it into words; he is not using the occasion of writing to sort out what he thinks. Nor does the writer of classic prose have to argue for the truth; he just needs to present it. That is because the reader is competent and can recognize the truth when she sees it, as long as she is given an unobstructed view. The writer and the reader are equals, and the process of directing the reader's gaze takes the form of a conversation." He later defines disinterested properly as unbiased and without a vested interest. He also nicely qualifies that such presentation does require drafting and revision, likening this to a celebrity chef pulling a soufflé from the oven--we are presented with the final product and not the whole process of him learning how to make it. I have always been troubled at the idea of expecting students to write 'with style,' for I'd always the phrase ambiguous and thus unquantifiable and unattainable. But Pinker, as he does throughout the book, takes ambiguities and presents them in clear, attainable terms. And so reassuring. For example, hearing him describe paragraph breaks as eye rests for the reader, grammar and punctuation as guides to reading rather than persnickety rules, and even his own moments of persnicketiness for accuracy, that makes this a book to keep on-hand in defense against the lazy and hyper-arrogant.

Firstly, The Sense of Style is not a reference guide but a meditation on the nature of style. Steven Pinker’s cap fits, tightly, down over a number of fields – experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist, and popular science writer. He has referred to himself as a psycholinguist as well. Professor Pinker teachers at Harvard University. What the reader is getting here is a lifetime [at the time of writing the author is 60 years of age] of experience and research distilled into a single book. The book is written for non-fiction writers but could well be used for fiction writers as well. There are too many issues tucked into this 368 page book to treat comprehensively in this review, but a shortlist are show-stoppers: 1. Passive Voice not only isn’t a poor choice but can, on occasion, be the best choice. Caveat – the passive should be used with circumspection. 2. It definitely is not incorrect, or even bad, to begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction, such And, But, or So. 3. ‘They’ as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun not only is correct but it has a long tradition – Shakespeare and Jane Austen both used it…as well as George Bernard Shaw. Only in the 19th Century did it become a problem. It may even be used where the gender of the referent has been plainly stated beforehand – Shaw does this. 4. Though dated Strunk and White’s style guide is still useful. A kind way of saying it is time to kick Strunk and White to the curb. As Prof. Pinker writes: “for all their intuitive feel for style, [Strunk and White] had a tenuous grasp of grammar.” Pinker goes on to list their weaknesses. The author offers many other useful tools for the thoughtful writer as well…be they university students, academics, or professional writers. Occasionally, however, the reader may find themselves flipping back and forth in the book to follow the argument, but for the most part Pinker’s The Sense of Style is very accessible and useful. Highly recommended for all those wishing to improve their style and get some historical background on grammar uses and why they may be so odd and, in some cases, plain wrong. Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

[2 1/2 stars, rounded up to 3.] Now, to be sure, I have never had much use for style guides. Yes, there was all the studying for the writing portion of the SAT, years ago, which required lots of rule-learning and -- even worse -- the application of said rules to poorly-written `answers' that were anything but right. Yes, I'd been assigned the oft-banal Strunk & White's Elements Of Style in college courses, and have, out of curiosity, perused a number of similar guides not only across form and genre (prose, poetry, non-fiction, sci-fi, grammar) but multiple languages, as well, just to see how the rest of the world, well, merely hypothesizes the sorts of things that are in fact REAL to me. For instance, I still recall reading Orson Scott Card's How To Write Science Fiction And Fantasy, and finding -- even as a 10 year old with a desire to impart stories -- the thing too restrictive for anyone but the worst writers, to whom issues of mechanics and advice re: `world-building' might narrowly apply. Thus, I was both intrigued and a little alarmed when I read the title of Steven Pinker's new book. Now, don't get me wrong. While admittedly a very good writer with MANY interesting ideas across the board, Steven Pinker is a thinking academic (as opposed an academic thinker!), first, and has not, in his occasional comments on the topic, shown any deeper understanding of the arts. Yes, he's constructed some great arguments, and pointedly done away with scientific fraud within the clarion of a mere sentence or two, but that does not really lend itself to art criticism. This is because the wisdom (not `knowledge') immanent to recognizing a great poem, or the odd assortment of skills and luck that goes into differentiating a good from bad metaphor is nigh-indefinable. In short, while true creativity might be easy to quantify, if one merely KNOWS how to evaluate the works, themselves, its source in most cases isn't. This means that no intellect, personal background, type, or force of character guarantees success in this endeavor, and Pinker's book, to its credit, does not pretend otherwise. Before getting into the book's negatives, however, one must first say what it does right. Although it is easily the worst of the 3 or 4 books of his that I've read, The Sense Of Style is also, unsurprisingly, the best style guide that I've ever read. This is because it simply drops a few key hints re: usage and style, combs over the important historical trends as a kind of guideline, and thus allows the reader -- at least for the most part -- to draw his own conclusions on aesthetic matters, keeping the long view in mind and minimizing the least defensible stylistic errors. Too often, style guides are bogged down by dull proscriptive rules that don't give a damn for rhythm, music, ambiguity, and subtleties of meaning that, in the end, do FAR more for language than thoughtless obedience ever will. Thus, instead of offering endless rules, Pinker merely suggests the use of "classic style," which is a way of writing that approximates speech (at least in some respects), assumes equality between reader and writer, engages in dialogue, goes for rhythm and sound over mere correctness, and always keeps the object of writing, i.e., what is being communicated, in mind. No, it's not a formula that can ever create truly great writing, but it can at least get a few sub-mediocrities into slightly better company -- which is the REAL goal of style guides, if one is realistic about things like talent. In other words, if Pinker's advice were to be followed, bad CNN articles would produce fewer guffaws, instruction booklets would be a little clearer, and life, while getting on as is, a bit more manageable on the whole. Style guides can't do much more than this, however, and one of the flaws here is that Pinker does not make this explicit, assuming, as he does, that replication of the good and great would be more common if merely taught and/or `aspired' to. In fact, the book's greatest strength is not really its style portion, but its central argument, and what this argument entails for the future of writing, providing, as it does, some alternatives to how good language is presently thought about. The world, Pinker claims, has always been riddled with faux scares wherein this or that `authority' declaims the debasement of language, the breakdown of literature (sometimes forever), or a people's sudden inability to write a good, coherent sentence. Pinker gives many examples, such as the slow disappearance of the subjunctive in speech, the malignment of "ain't" (going on for over two centuries, now), the old hatred for now-standard words such as "contact" and "prioritize," ridiculous rules concerning passive voice, and prophecies dating back hundreds of years about the dissolution of English. But the issue, Pinker argues, is not in any of these individual usages or trends, but in the fact that language changes over time. Words come in and out of vogue, grammatical constructions (which are not always logical, and therefore subject to endless variations) change, and writers -- even highly influential ones such as Milton, Shakespeare, and Whitman -- tend to ignore the sort of advice that's always being given to `save' literature. This is partly because whatever stress is placed upon a language, it will simply adapt to it in unpredictable ways, whether it's in the physical issues of writing (i.e., Chinese ideograms being more historically clunky than alphabets), or the influx of new words and malformed, immature styles being rehabilitated into something better by those with the talent to do so. This is why broken, ungrammatical dialogue has genuine poesy within the films of Martin Scorsese or the plays of Eugene O'Neill, despite running absolutely counter to everything that might have been written of `good taste' just one century prior. And it's pretty clear that, in time, even the much-maligned Internet lingo will be rehabilitated into something deeper, as well. Just as predictably, however, when this bulls*** will finally be accepted, the new bulls*** -- whatever it may be, decades hence -- will be decried, only to be assimilated in its turn by those that have learned to see opportunity in detritus. No, Pinker doesn't make all of this so explicit, but leaves just enough room for a good reader to build upon the theories, within, thus engaging REAL ideas in a way that few style guides ever do. Pinker's "tree" schema is likewise an interesting update to typical grammar mapping. In Pinker's model, sentences, instead of simply being mapped into traditional categories of parts-of-speech, are broken down into a fluid movement of phrases and clauses. Pinker uses the image of an upside-down tree that groups small words at the bottom, phrases a little higher, larger phrases even higher, and clauses and even bigger clauses at the top. In this way, syntactical relationships are clearer, and it is CLARITY, as opposed to rule-making, that is kept as the model's final aim. It also capitalizes on a peculiarity of English in that the left-to-right order of syntax is tied up with two separate tasks: action and sequencing, the latter of which applies not only to the logical action within a sentence, as it plays out in reality, but also to how the brain processes word-sequences, in general, irrespective of the `real time' they might signify. As Pinker writes, "a writer must constantly reconcile the two sides of word order: a code for information, and a sequence of mental events." In effect, the tree model simplifies both, and encourages a study of grammar that is more concerned with meaning and relationships than arbitrary and impenetrable rules. Finally, some of Pinker's more specific comments on bad writing habits are pretty spot-on. For instance, he tackles issues such as "signposting" (or not trusting the reader to follow your own cues, thus needing to broadcast everything), the over-use of the pronoun "we" (which often serves to reduce the impact of a writer's own statement, hiding it, as it were, under the umbrella of `humanity'), metadiscourse (self-conscious writing for a very limited, often academic audience), apologetic quotation marks instead of taking responsibility for a word or phrase head-on, compulsive hedging, and -- interestingly enough -- the use of intensifiers such as "very," "highly," and "extremely" as hedges, as they can qualify a statement that would otherwise have to be taken as an absolute. But perhaps his most cogent comment re: the arts is that "Classic prose is a pleasant illusion": or, "a pretense, an imposture, a stance." Yes, there's the unfortunate conflation of good writing with `the truth' that Pinker eventually makes, but in this comment, at least, are the seeds of what art is: a mere TRICK. Or if that's too harsh, a concentrate OF reality, funneled off from a much larger mass, as opposed to reality or `the truth,' itself, which is more random, banal, and happenstance than even seemingly disorganized great art, a la Martin Scorcese's characters, or the seeming (and ONLY seeming) improv within John Cassavetes's dialogue. In fact, these are all very tightly constructed art-works, as is "classic style," in Pinker's own model, wherein a slow, methodical process is made to look effortless. Yet The Sense Of Style has other pretensions that go well beyond being a style manual, thus confusing the book's overall purpose and catching Pinker in traps that he himself lays. Perhaps the biggest issue comes at the book's start, and because it IS at the start, and not merely nestled away in some appendix, the careful reader will come to question Pinker's later arguments, as well. As noted, Pinker begins his book with a personal bias for "classic style," which is not really an issue because style guides, in general, must take these positions anyway. The issue comes when Pinker goes from making a personal call ("classic style" as a preferred aesthetic) to giving examples of GOOD prose (at least in Pinker's mind) written in the classic style. Get the difference? The latter is no longer mere `taste,' but a purportedly objective judgment that Pinker usually fails to make the case for, given his inability to separate fresh writing from cliches, predictable narrative arcs from genuine and meaningful surprises, and competent metaphors from awkward ones. Thus, when Pinker argues for this or that literary ideal, he simply confuses the reader into accepting many of the same illusions that he himself has, even though much of his own writing -- by luck or instinct -- is impervious to their ill effects. Here are some of Pinker's examples of great writing in the classic style, all culled from the 21st century. The first is from Richard Dawkins' book, Unweaving The Rainbow: ##### "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here." ##### Pinker calls this good writing, but let's take a look at his argument. He calls the opening sentence "strong," as a kind of counter-intuitive hook, but in fact it's merely passable as such. This is because, while quite stark and eye-catching, on the `pro' side, it is paired with an utterly shallow insight -- the very definition of "melodramatic," i.e., sentiments that are needlessly exaggerated given the reality they are responding to. This means that the passage, far from revealing new, richer meanings upon re-reading (as all great writing does), simply dies with examination. Yes, there's music, rhythm, and other elements that purely academic writing never seems to have, but that is mechanical soundness, NOT great writing, which does and encompasses more. Pinker claims that Dawkins's "the sand grains of Arabia" cliche has, in fact, "a touch of the poetic," and even claims the cliche is inverted due to its use of "sand grains" as opposed to the more familiar (in Pinker's mind) "sands." This is untrue, however, for this is a minor and not-even-cosmetic change that, realistically, changes nothing, as both phrasings are very common, easily recognized, and appear in identical contexts. To be an inverted cliche, as Pinker claims, the word "sand" would have to be affixed to something else altogether, in substantively unfamiliar territory, a fact that Pinker seems to get, but cannot articulate through examples. Numerically, then, Dawkins' cliche appears just as often as "sands," if not more so, and Pinker says nothing of the cliche immediately preceding it ("never see the light of day"). In short, while exhorting the reader to never use cliches, for they deaden mental imagery, he ignores one and fails to recognize (and even praises) another. This is not good, for a careful reader will keep all this in mind as the book progresses, taking Pinker's later, more cogent advice with due and undue skepticism. Besides this, Dawkins's passage is also ridiculously banal, ranging, as it does, from the sort of illogic that Pinker arbitrarily rips elsewhere (`we are lucky to have been born' vs. `we are ordinary, and this happens all the time'), to its several obvious cliches, to the odd, asymmetrical conclusion. Yes, we DO exist against "stupefying odds" -- at least in a purely technical sense -- but the fact is, most people ARE ordinary (as Dawkins points out), and therefore interchangeable, rendering this genetic diversity utterly meaningless, and obviating, in fact, the sentiments of pretty much the entire paragraph. Yet Dawkins does not see this, opting, instead, for some faux poetics that Pinker is hoodwinked into accepting as the real thing, even though the initial `hook' could have worked much better in another, less melodramatic context. The second excerpt is from Pinker's wife, the philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, from her book Betraying Spinoza: ##### [full excerpt available on my website due to Amazon's word limit.] ##### Although Pinker correctly goes on to say that different styles can lead to the same kind of greatness, he errs in choosing Dawkins and Goldstein as exemplars of this idea. No, it certainly is not the lifeless garbage that fills academic journals, but is it great writing? There is, for instance, the opening paragraph, with the awkward, oddly euphemistic ending ("at least not unproblematically," vis-a-vis death) that makes Goldstein's later connections THAT much more predictable. Then, Pinker notes a sentence wherein the cliche "small `o' of her mouth" is praised as an inversion that "conjure[s] a mental image of the act rather than skating over a verbal summary." But it really doesn't, for that image is already present in a good reader's mind, culled, as it is, from a long-standing cliche re: the mouth's alphabetic shape, and is therefore ready-made, and requires no mental pauses -- the very thing that Pinker in fact encourages good writing to do. Pinker also compliments "The sister whose hand I am clutching in the picture is dead" as an abstract reverie that is "punctured by a stark revelation." But this implies that the reverie's attachment to death is somehow surprising, or otherwise playing with the reader's more impulsive expectations. It is not. In fact, an experienced reader will, from the very beginning, know EXACTLY where the narrative arc is going for precisely the reasons Pinker states: that it STARTS with a euphemism for death ("at least not unproblematically"), immediately goes to the trope-cliche of an old photograph examined by a narrator, skates around "abstract" and "wistful nostalgia" (Pinker's phrasings), and circles back to the philosophizing that kicked the piece off with a comment on death. In fact, I was surprised when this "revelation" occurred ONLY because I figured she already implied it, only to be further hammered with it at the end. Yes, her prose is clear, her meaning is obvious -- all hallmarks of "classic style" -- but whether such things are done WELL, in terms translating into excellence and depth of writing, is another issue altogether. At bottom, every trick of Goldstein, every technique and revelation, is transparent from the passage's start, and it is hard to keep a good reader interested when such things are too easily guessed at. Margalit Fox, a journalist who is mostly known for her obituaries, is chosen as the third exemplar, and is actually the worst writer thus far. I will not quote her at length, but stick to one obituary in particular, representative, as it is, of much of her writing: ##### MAURICE SENDAK, AUTHOR OF SPLENDID NIGHTMARES, DIES AT 83 Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children's book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying, and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday, in Danbury, Conn... Roundly praised, intermittently censored, and occasionally eaten, Mr. Sendak's books were essential ingredients of childhood for the generation born after 1960 or thereabouts, and in turn for their children. ##### Pinker calls this "deadpan wit, an affection for eccentricity, and a deft use of the English lexicon," but Jesus, where does one even begin in pointing out his errors? I mean, just count the number of cliches strung into a single sentence: "the safe, sanitized world," "plunged it into the dark, terrifying, and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche." Simply consider the forced verbiage: his books were "occasionally eaten" -- what?? And Pinker defends this by saying that sometimes, books ARE in fact "eaten"?! Then, there's the cutesy language that is meant to justify such forced, awkward wording after-the-fact: these books were, at one point or another, "essential ingredients". (Get it? Because ingredients can be "eaten".) There's more -- a lot more -- that Pinker quotes from Fox, not all of it this bad, but the fact that Pinker opens his section on Margalit Fox with this obituary, in particular, is alarming, and further puts little doubts in the reader's mind of Pinker's competence with the rest of the book. Thus, 3 of 4 excerpts in, and Pinker inadvertently torpedoes many of the better insights that will come later. The final quote is from journalist Isabel Wilkerson, who has a solid (even if somewhat functional) take on the Great Migration, ending in a good paragraph that builds suspense all the while dissipating it in the last minute, thus nicely recapitulating her own argument in a mere two-word sentence: ##### [full excerpt available on my website due to Amazon's word limit...] ##### Pinker goes on to praise Wilkerson for her making this period `specific,' as opposed to merely statistical or abstracted, via sentences such as "typists wanting to work in an office" (as opposed to the impersonal "denial of economic opportunities" -- Pinker's example), calls "a single gesture...could leave them hanging from an oak tree" absolutely "horrific," and even compliments the fact that we know it is an "oak" tree, as opposed to something else. The wan "As hard and unyielding as the red Georgia clay" is called a "poeticism," while Pinker goes on to give preference to phrases that fit his personal aesthetic, NOT what is necessarily most communicative. So, "when the land turned to dust" is supposedly better than "the Dust Bowl," "when there was nothing to eat" is preferable to "the Potato Famine," and "the landless" superior to "peasants". Yet if you were to take all of these phrases -- both Wilkerson's, as well as Pinker's -- and string them along a hierarchy of bad, good, and great, they'd merely crowd each other in the same rank, as there is not much appreciable difference from Pinker's own counter-examples. The fact is, Wilkerson's supposedly poetic descriptions of lynching are fairly rote, appearing, as they do, in thousands upon thousands of similar journalistic pieces over many decades, and her much-lauded specificity ("typists" vs. something abstract) alleviates only the worst of the worst academic writing. No, it ain't Homi K. Bhabha's prize-winning sentences, but the fact that it's not some highly abstracted dreck does not, by extension, bring her own writing to greatness. If anything, it's simply there, and therefore easy on the eyes and brain. But that's HARDLY a stab at true distinction, but mere readability. Yes, the last paragraph is good (for reasons Pinker is correct on), but this, at best, makes Pinker 1 for 4, now, which is worse than dart-tossing. This reveals that, at least when it comes to OTHERS' prose, Pinker is much more swayed by his own emotions, as opposed to good, objective judgment. And these flaws crop up not only here, but in much smaller examples in the book, as well. In showing the reader how to write better prose, for instance, many bad suggestions inevitably come up. In one particularly egregious case, Pinker starts with a wonderful observation: that "even when a shopworn image is the best way to convey an idea, a classic writer can keep his reader engaged by remembering what the idiom literally refers to and playing with the image" -- absolutely true, since cliches, by their very nature, force the brain into a state of non-engagement, which good writing ought to remedy. Yet in his own suggestions as to how this happens, Pinker's side-by-side `improvements' of supposedly inferior prose are anything but. Thus, the idiomatic -- if a little rote -- "When Americans are told about foreign politics, their eyes glaze over" becomes the talky and effete "Ever tried to explain to a New Yorker the finer points of Slovakian coalition politics? I have. He almost needed an adrenaline shot to come out of the coma." And this silly but innocuous comment: "Electronic publication is scholarship on steroids" is turned into an utter caricature of itself: "With electronic publication, you can see your stuff published just 15 seconds after you write it. It's scholarship on methamphetamines. Publication for speed freaks." Get it? The assumption is that "methamphetamines" is better than "steroids," and one cliche ("on steroids") is somehow better than another ("speed freaks"), all the while expanding one silly, six-word sentence into 3 reiterations of the same fluff can somehow `correct' things. And if that's not enough, there's also this little transition: from the cliche "He threw out the baby with the bathwater," to the awkward, eyebrow-raising "The bath was dry, and the baby had vanished." Thus, Pinker offers a cogent precept -- that cliches ought to be played with and made less familiar -- and utterly destroys it with his own application. Yet those are not the only issues with The Sense Of Style. In one unfortunate turn, Pinker decides to reject the "bamboozlement theory" of bad writing for something he calls "the curse of knowledge". To Pinker, bad writing -- especially jargon-heavy writing -- is often caused by authors who simply have too much knowledge of their field, and have therefore forgotten what it means to actually COMMUNICATE this knowledge to those outside of a small academic circle. But while this is certainly true for things like instructional booklets, or scientific fields, and the like, the more obvious explanation for bad writing is pure INABILITY. Now, it may sound `too obvious,' but bad writers are not simply cursed with too much knowledge, but, like most people (a category that even the very intelligent belong to), simply don't have a way with words -- as Pinker's 4 examples of "great writing" indubitably proves. Moreover, although the bamboozlement theory of bad writing -- i.e., that bad writers often obfuscate shallow ideas with fancy, empty words -- is ultimately rejected, Pinker seems to not realize how pervasive this phenomenon really is. Yes, it's harder to get away with such in Pinker's field, as well as other hard sciences, `pure' history, and the like, but it is not only common in the liberal arts, but is in fact the norm. Of the hundreds of academic articles I've read in full over the years, plus the thousands or so I've skimmed in other capacities, virtually all of them sound alike, argue similar things (despite the writers' assumption of somehow being `different'), say very little worth repeating, and very little that is ever going to be remembered. Just look, for instance, at the academic articles of 1954, via your local university library, and tell me if more than .001% of those once-leading names are recognizable today. No, this is not the malicious sort of bamboozlement that the phrase implies, but in a world where most `insights' are shallow, and genuine ideas rare, such puffery is taken as the norm, and one-upmanship becomes an exercise in self-negation. This is true of film studies, the visual arts, theater, music, poetry, cultural anthropology, prose... At end, there are no real thoughts or personalities left in the bulk of writing on these topics, merely words that don't add up to much, as they don't come from much, in the first place, except a cynical academic game that most writers don't even realize they're playing. Yet Pinker fails to see this, even as he disparagingly quotes from the worst contemporary offenders. As noted, Pinker values the "classic style" above others, but his reasoning is only halfway there. Yes, it is true, as he argues, that it's important to keep the writing's object in mind, to be clear (most of the time), and so on. To Pinker, this is because good writing -- fiction, included -- needs to find patterns that `mesh' with the brain, thus facilitating faster and easier communication. This is a neural reading of art that, to be sure, serves as an initial blueprint for good communication. But, because it is a mere blueprint, it serves the bare minimum, reserved, as it is, for prose stylists who simply need to learn how to write competently before tackling even the most functional of tasks. In fact, the other part of this equation of "mental patterning" and "ease" actually FIGHTS against these more natural impulses of the brain for ease and assimilation. This other, deeper part is there to make you WORK -- to force you to re-read things, and reconcile ambiguities that, in `pure' classic style, tend to appear only rarely, for they violate the style's basic aesthetic. Realistically, art as a whole needs to have BOTH features, and a tension between these features to really work. This is true in fiction passages, wherein a subject or object can be neatly buried in huge, seemingly overlong paragraphs (as in a couple of Irwin Shaw stories), for purposes that become clear only with re-reading, or expansive, Moby-Dick sentences that violate so many tenets of grammar, but MUST do so in order to establish some of the meanings that they communicate. These examples, in fiction, non-fiction, and everything in between, resist Pinker's more neural reading of literature, for our sense of patterning, and desire for satisfaction -- often immediate satisfaction -- is at odds with the some deeper things that run counter to such whims. And in between our whims and the things outside of ourselves is a comfortable medium wherein true art lies. Go too far afield, and you risk losing a connection to what's recognizably human. Stick too close to home, and you risk self-absorption. The Sense Of Style is marred by the latter, as it is too safe even when it purports to push boundaries. Thus, if one were to summarize the book's flaws in one sentence, it is this: that Pinker confuses "good style" with deeper communication, as well as with art itself. Style (as he in fact argues) is merely the MEANS to the latter. Yet while Pinker seems to recognize this, intellectually, he does not really get it when it comes time to deliver with examples -- the only way, in fact, that true understanding can be communicated. In fact, the problem with style guides on the whole is that they necessarily deal with detritus. They cut a large path and generalize, not on how to make bad writing good, but mediocre writing palatable. To be sure, this is a perfectly acceptable goal, but Pinker's issue is that he has a pretense of doing something else, and ends up doing it poorly. The Sense Of Style has a few excellent moments, but is so bogged down by traps that Pinker can't help but fall into, that they are inevitably lost upon readers trying to get at the `thing' that Pinker, himself, can't fully articulate. This is not really of service. But unlike pretty much every other style guide and how-to book that's out there, it is at least a beginning. Too bad that Pinker can't tell the trajectory, nor lead things where another must. [Author of Woody Allen: Reel to Real (Digidialogues) ]

Rabid fans of Pinker (like me) will NOT be disappointed with this book! It would be a mistake to assume all the Strunk and White, Elements of Style stuff promoted by the publisher in some way limits this gem of a book to writers and writing. What we love about Pinker: -- assuming his readers are bright -- covering potentially "boring" topics like linguistics as they relate to cognition in can't-put-it-down fashion -- getting into the underlying mechanics of and with deep analysis, logic and example dissection, (among many others) are all here in abundance. Like his other books, this wonderful text is a page turner. His usual sense of both humility and astonishment both abound. How can a topic as potentially dry as writing style carry that kind of tide? Many answers, but one is the quality of examples. In typical Pinker style, Steven gives an example (for instance, one of my favorites, Keegan and Clausewitz on war, p. 170), initially goes along with the abundant praise of style and logic, then in his typical brilliant yet childlike fashion, says, "Wait a minute?" and dissects the logic with the honed scalpel we're used to seeing in his neuro and linguistics masterpieces. And how nontrivial (given the news) is a topic like why humans go to war? My point is that far beyond being for seasoned or budding writers, this wonderful text is equally for fans of his other investigations of human logic and choice, as well as a general touchstone for all readers in analytically evaluating what they are reading. I'm not saying that the audience for this work isn't writers, but if you sat as an observer in a brilliant writing class given by not just a brilliant writer and author, but also linguist and cognitive scientist, you'd be taking copious notes on the astonishing depth and subtlety of cognitive errors that truly refined analysis produces. Some of the life changing twists and turns in interpretation and style read more like a detective story than a how to manual. But of course-- lead by example-- all the knowledge on the planet won't keep you reading if the author isn't fun, delicious, and adept at keeping readers continuously engaged, even with deep topics and analysis. And there's the rub. It's tough enough to write a good novel, but how do you write about, say, science, in an engaging way? This isn't a Monday morning analyst, or a bleachers expert, it is a recursive, here's what it's about, how it's done, and oh, by the way, you're IN it right now author. Frankly, I do analysis at the code level in programming and bio/ robotics and am far from a language expert (but do see its reflection in category theory, for example), so I have to "study" rather than read Pinker's books. How does he manage to "lead me along" with a page turner style, even though I keep stopping to re-read and look up his concepts? Not exactly sure, but am a little closer to the answer now. Highly recommended!

I loved Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" and "The Better Angels of Our Nature", and I love style guides, so I eagerly awaited the release of this book. Alas, when it came out and I read it, my high hopes were disappointed. This book provides an interesting and potentially very useful approach to writing well (or more properly not writing badly), basing its analysis of style and (mostly) grammar on the way people think, not on arbitrary rules. In some parts, it meets that objective; in others, I think that it falls short. Starting with the best, Chapter 5 ("Arcs of Coherence") goes beyond grammar to examine style (clarity, impact, coherence) more broadly. I found this very interesting, and very unusual in that most writing about style stops with grammar. Chapter 3 ("The Curse of Knowledge") also sparked some definite "ah ha!" moments. Writers who are expert in a field do indeed too often assume that their readers know more about a subject than the readers in fact do, because the writers are so immersed in the field themselves. The book is well worth reading for these two chapters alone, and some other sections are also interesting and helpful. In addition, the overall tone -- reasons not rules -- is a big positive, and the book is engagingly written. Finally, thank you Mr. Pinker for using "she" rather than "he" as the generic pronoun a lot of the time. But one section of the book -- the one on grammar -- does not live up to the good bits, or indeed to Pinker's own central theme. Again and again, he stresses that clarity is essential to good writing. His own section on grammar, however, was not entirely clear to me. In particular, the introduction of "deep structure" into his discussion of syntax (Chapter 4 -- "The Web, The Tree, and The String") left me somewhat baffled. Pinker himself says that if a reader says "I think I understand it", she probably doesn't. In reading through this section (more than once), I kept thinking "I think I understand it". And there was something familiar about that fuzzy feeling: over the years, I have read a good bit about language and linguistics, but Noam Chomsky always left me thinking "I think I understand it". Upon reconsideration, I don't think I did, and I don't think that I fully grasped Pinker's Chapter 4 either. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in the process of writing: you can learn a lot. But I would not say that this book is a definitive guide to current English style, which is I suppose what I was hoping for. Still, I definitely intend to read it again, and will update my review after doing so.

Every writer (aspiring and seasoned) must give Pinker's book a try. I gave and I'm glad I did. Will you?

For anyone looking to improve her scribbling style, or just interested in remembering what makes good writing good, this book is a fascinating and informative read. Initially drawn to Mr Pinker after reading a very different book-Enlightenment Now!-I found myself intrigued by one that takes us more specifically into his areas of expertise. Having made his name in the study of cognitive psycholinguistics, it is only natural that Steven Pinker should give us a book devoted-as were our old style manuals from our uni days-to showing the reader how to employ tried-and-true writing techniques, as well as encouraging us, as we write, to challenge some of the old conventions of writing style and structure. Mr Pinker provides numerous examples of writing, from the very bad to the exceptional, and illustrates how to avoid the usual traps of wordiness and sloppy style. A worthwhile primer or a reminder, wherever you may be in your writing stages.

A fine contemporary style guide There are books which the blurb on the back cover calls 'unputdownable'. Then there are books to be worked at. This is one of those. If you want a relaxed read through the elements of classic writing style, this is not for you. However Steven Pinker's work is delightful in a different way. It goes beyond the borders of grammar; and the play of words, the turn of phrase and the subtle humour make the plough worth it. The best parts are where he analyzes the debatable issues and shows you how different senses of a word/phrase make certain exceptions possible ('very unique' is acceptable in certain cases, 𝘦.𝘨.). Pick it up when you have plenty of days at hand for it's not a work to be finished in one sitting. But yes, the dividends are rich, once you go through it. You get clarity on a number of doubts (you were afraid to ask). After I got it for my Kindle ereader, I ordered a hard copy as well as I realized its worth as a reference manual. 📚📖📓

Alcuni capitoli sono troppo tecnici per il lettore comune, ovvero il non specialista in linguistica. Offre comunque interessanti e utili approfondimenti per chi scrive di professione, si tratti di un giornalista, uno scrittore o un lavoratore intellettuale che ogni tanto produce documenti scritti che abbiano l'obiettivo di farsi comprendere.

Texto inteligente e intuitivo que abre la mente de quien se adentra en él. Muy recomendable su lectura.