The Sense of Style

Steven Pinker opens with a declaration of love for style manuals, which he finds both useful and enjoyable to read—especially as a cognitive scientist interested in how language works. He cites William Strunk and E. B. White’s The Elements of Style as a classic in the genre, but notes that the authors’ keen sense of style was combined with an imperfect grasp of grammar. Moreover, like many other style guides, Elements gave advice that contradicted linguistic science and treated language as unchanging. As a result, Pinker notes, the advice of even the most engaging style manuals can be needlessly restrictive. A fear of change leads some style guide writers to reject new words or embrace the notion that the language is being degraded by the younger generation. Yet, as Pinker demonstrates, that concern has been constant throughout much of written history, and many of the changes deplored by earlier writers are deemed unexceptionable by their later counterparts.

Pinker’s ambition is not to completely replace previous style guides, but to offer reflections on those manuals based on his knowledge of linguistics and cognitive science. He is less interested in