Friday Reads: The Sense of Style

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The Sense of Style Steven Pinker

“If you had to boil down Pinker’s advice into two main points, they would be: “Keep it snappy” and “Keep it simple”. Unfortunately, he proves wholly incapable of abiding by his own rules. Rather, he’s a colossal windbag, never using three words when 35 can be rammed into the breach, and frequently writing sentences so tortuous that they seem to be eating themselves.”

Clearly The Telegraph isn’t a big fan of Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style. And I’m not entirely sure that I am either. I’ll reserve my final judgement for when I finish reading the book, but so far I haven’t really learned anything new. It is full of the same grammar rules and exceptions that I’ve heard many times before, and I’m not convinced that any of Pinker’s advice would make someone a better writer. But I’ll keep reading. Because that’s what I do.

What are you reading? 

 

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