Book Review: The Sense of Style, by Steven Pinker
A tree in Galicia en route to Morgade, Spain, along the Camino Francés
The Sense of Style, by Steven Pinker, presents an interesting duality. On one hand, it declares an empowering, actionable goal on behalf of writers and editors: to “distinguish the rules [of style and grammar] that enhance clarity, grace, and emotional resonance from those that are based on myths and misunderstandings.” The stated point of this investigation is to allow his audience “to apply the guidelines judiciously, mindful of what they are designed to accomplish, rather than robotically” (pp. 6, 7).
On the other hand, Mr. Pinker’s book spends a great deal of time providing an education which is enlightening and entertaining but not easily practicable, as it pursues the author’s greater vocational hunger: to pick apart clunky grammatical protocols instated by “[m]anuals that are credulous about the inerrancy of the traditional rules [which] don’t serve writers well” and to dig deeper into the mechanisms of the ever-evolving creature we call language, which “orthodox stylebooks are ill equipped to deal with” (p. 3). The final conclusion of this investigation seems to be a sort of joyous surrender to the fact that while we are able to rationalize and reform quite a bit of the rulebook for written language, we will never wrestle all of language into any final set of protocols. In addition to multiple nods to the ever-changing nature of language, in the chapter “Arcs of Coherence,” Pinker serenely confesses, “There is no algorithm for doing this” (p. 143) and also admits, “The ways to order material are as plentiful as ways to tell a story” (p. 144).
To put all this another way, The Sense of Style is a deeply-engaging book which I would recommend to any language nerd or student of the writing craft who enjoys the following three things:
The study of English both in the wild and in the laboratory, in order to observe, laugh about, and say “Aha!” concerning the hijinks language can get up to
Becoming tangled in the sticky process of unraveling why certain processions of words and punctuation convey meaning while others trip over themselves in confusion and embarrassment
Emerging from such a study with a deeper reverence for written English’s quirks as well as the variety of sometimes-clashing remedies that can be employed to address them
However, for anyone who wants a quick reference for better writing or editing, I suggest looking elsewhere.
To be clear, there is much to recommend this book. I mean, I felt motivated to write an updated review of it, having just read it for the second time. Pinker is one of those delightful specialists who is deeply knowledgeable and enviably lucid. Whether or not he has written a practical book, he succeeded in demonstrating the mystery and thrill of communication via the written word. And however tricky they might be to put into immediate practice, he “distinguish[es] the rules that enhance clarity, grace, and emotional resonance from those that are based on myths and misunderstandings” (p. 6). I’d add that he also does a more important thing, which is to demonstrate those rules, through his own writing and examples from others (it is just that one will probably have to digest this book for a while before being able to properly act upon it all).
Mr. Pinker focuses his attention on non-fiction writing, and in particular on what he labels the "classical style.” He elaborates upon the mechanics of written language and peeks into how our minds process it, and then he delves into a wide variety of points of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary…usually with great clarity. He entertains with examples that frequently caused me to laugh out loud, and he dismantles grammatical dogmatism and condescension with quite a bit of grace (although he occasionally snaps hard at would-be grammarians).
Here are some of the highlights from my reread of The Sense of Style:
All of Chapter One, which explores great prose. Superficially, it reverse engineers good prose. On a deeper level, the chapter acts out a cardinal rules of becoming a better writer: read good writing!
Chapter Two, which urges writers to forego the temptation to be high-falutin’ for the sake of high-falutin’. This chastised the writerly snob that sometimes itches to sneaks out of me, and encouraged the respectful, empathic editor I aspire to be. Pinker graciously assumes that linguistic snobbery is often unintentional, but he also rightly points out that using a lot of sophisticated lingo alienates and demeans many would-be readers, whether one meant for that to happen or not.
It is all a healthy reminder that one real test of good writing is not whether you can browbeat others into feeling impressed vis a vis feeling like they will never understand what you are saying; rather, it is in whether you will do the work to find clear language that builds a bridge between your ideas and the ones already in the heads of readers. This is the sort of empathic, editorial activity that gives your message a decent chance of passing through the gates of someone else’s mind and settling in among the messages already living there.
I likewise appreciated Chapter Three’s appeal to writers to beware of the “curse of knowledge.” Pinker warns us that we have “difficulty…imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that [we] know” (p. 59). He demonstrates how the less a reader knows about a writer’s subject matter, the more of a challenge it will be to digest the writer’s words.
This message resonates deeply with my vision as a freelance editor. One of my core convictions is that our writing travels farther and reaches deeper into other people’s hearts only when we take steps to resonate—to truly communicate. It is usually not enough to simply put down words. If we really care about connecting, then most of the time we cannot just say something and expect others to get it. Pinker shares this conviction, and he explores how a writer can assist their readers in gaining comprehension and maintaining coherent inertia while reading.
Pinker talks a lot in this chapter about “chunking,” or breaking down a message into digestible units of meaning, in order to try and break the curse of knowledge. I suspect that one’s mileage will vary when trying to identify the “chunks” of a given subject matter area. I had some fun thinking of examples.
For example, a first draft of a short story might include the dialogue, “Oh, great, here comes Mathilda.” In the writer’s mind, this speaks for itself, but only because the writer knows everything about Mathilda as well as the person displeased at her appearance. But what context does the page deliver? This prose improves when the writer asks what chunks of information the reader needs to know. Does that include the nature of the relationship between the speaker and Mathilda? The temperaments of one or both characters? Some experiences shared by the two parties? And so forth. Even if answers to such questions do not all wind up on the page, the writer’s awareness of the deeper structure of their own story, and their parallel appreciation for the readers’ knowledge and assumptions, both grow as the author learns that what seemed like the smallest unit of meaning in the story (“Oh great, here comes Mathilda”) was actually composed of two, five, or ten smaller and more important units.
Some parts didn’t resonate for me as much as I read the book this time around:
Chapter Four. Much of it is a middle school English teacher’s delight (and my own, in a way…I was one of those kids who enjoyed diagramming sentences). Still, this time, I kept asking myself, how are all of these complex diagrams useable on a day-to-day basis for a writer or an editor? Why is it more helpful to think of a tree than a traditional diagram? What good is a Venn Diagram of a sentence?
(The chapter did get better for me when Pinker turned to tools and patterns writers can use to construct better chunks on the sentence level; like leveraging the sound and rhythm of words to imitate speech, or taking advantage of common arrangements of words and parts of speech to tap into common understanding.
Chapter Five did not resonate with me as much, either. It is ironic that Pinker has so much to say here, since this is where he admits that there is not only no universal algorithm for some things but an abundance of ways to skin certain grammatical cats.
Chapter Six. I admire how Pinker gracefully address a wide array of grammatical knots. But in a book that contains such an involved discussion of lucidity and the importance of ordering information in a user-friendly way, why did he choose to arrange these observations in alphabetical order? (And the section where he lists his own purity pet peeves feels simply weird, after he spent so much time establishing the fluidity of language and the absurdity of others’ pet peeves.)
Perhaps it is a saving grace that this book has an index. Still, any writer or editor who wishes to avail themselves of this book’s collected advice will have to remember exactly how Pinker chose to term things in this long (one-third of the book!), unordered list of dos and don’ts and maybes.
By the end of the book, Pinker did win me back, as he always does. His heart is in the same place as mine regarding language and human connection, and his conclusion stirs my spirit: