Sense of Style, The

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. 📚📖📓

I have mixed feelings about this book. Style guides are difficult to read and tend to be pedantic. Hence, the difficulty in reading the book is a genre problem rather than the author's capability to engage with the reader. There are many useful suggestions and the author takes a long and circuitous route to explain all the rules and logics used in grammar. The best thing about the book is that it doesnot propogate rules - and rather gives the tools to the authors. The rules and usage guidelines change from time to time as per the reader's expectations. That's my biggest take away

Firstly, this isn't a casual/easy read, even for serious readers, I presume. That said, the wisdom this book packs is immense, to say the least. For me, personally, as a professional writer and editor hailing from a tech background, this book has been a 'friendly' guide. Hats off (in utter humility) to the author, who, I'd say, has gone beyond the extra mile in capturing and conveying his years of knowledge in the most engaging and thought-provoking manner possible. ...and like many others who've read the book, I would also have to read it a second time to capture, in its entirety, the knowledge it conveys. In the process, I'd hop from one chapter to the next with the 'high' of having learned (and reinforced) something new about what I knew I knew.

Good delivery from Amazon. Good book. I have bought this for my son who is undergoing his ug course in English. He has appreciated it. Useful for academic support.

Very briefly - extraordinary. Pinker's book is on how to write well, and this book is a demonstration of how it is done. I am half way through it at the moment, and I will come back and write a full review when I am done.

No complain against the content of the book, but very poor binding and page quality

It's should be read like a math or physics book otherwise you are reading gibberish

A very good read for improving academic writing. In fact, this book is not for learning how to write, but it for those who want to learn how to revise the already written text. Therefore, it is not for beginers who want to learn academic writing.

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.

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.

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.