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

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.

This can be challenging to understand sometimes depending on your reading level. But it's an excellent book nonetheless. Everyone wanting to learn to write or understand linguistics should give this book a try!

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.