Steven Pinker on Good Writing, with Ian McEwan

__________________________

Filmed at the Royal Geographical Society on 25th September 2014.

Steven Pinker is one of the world’s leading authorities on language, mind and human nature. A professor of psychology at Harvard, he is the bestselling author of eight books and regularly appears in lists of the world’s top 100 thinkers.

On September 25th 2014 he returned to the Intelligence Squared stage to discuss his latest publication 'The Sense of Style', a short and entertaining writing guide for the 21st century. Pinker will argue that bad writing can’t be blamed on the internet, or on “the kids today”. Good writing has always been hard: a performance requiring pretence, empathy, and a drive for coherence. He answered questions such as: how can we overcome the “curse of knowledge”, the difficulty in imagining what it’s like not to know something we do? And how can we distinguish the myths and superstitions about language from helpful rules that enhance clarity and grace? Pinker showed how everyone can improve their mastery of writing and their appreciation of the art.

Professor Pinker was in conversation with Ian McEwan, one of Britain’s most acclaimed novelists, who has frequently explored the common ground between art and science.

[BabelRedeemed]

I've summarized Pinker's advice from this and the "Sense of Style" video:
- Be logical by starting small and progressing larger:
o “kit and caboodle”
o each point within a paragraph builds upon the previous
- Show, rather than tell; metaphors and similes are helpful if they are descriptive and memorable.
- Even academic writing needs to be visually pleasing – vary your sentence and paragraph lengths; don’t appear large and bloated.
- Be direct. There is no need to apologize or “hedge your bets” with words like: presumably, somewhat, fairly, to some extent…
o “[Give] the reader credit for knowing that many concepts are hard to define, and many controversies are hard to resolve; the reader is there to see what the writer will do about it.”
- Be careful with all adverbs – many are vague or confusing.
- Don’t over-use the passive voice; e.g. don’t say, “Mistakes were made.”
- It’s okay to use singular ‘they’, and we don’t have to worry too much about many other prescribed rules.

[Mathview]

My first encounter with startlingly good writing in the sciences was in our high school library where I found some books by Harvard Psychologist B.F. Skinner. I had no idea who he was, but I knew I wanted to learn to write like him. I also discovered that my tabula was not as rasa as my teachers thought it was.

[BabelRedeemed]

And now, Orwell's rules:
Orwell, George. 1946. Politics and the English Language.
“[O]ne can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:
“(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”

[georgecotton]

I highly recommend Pinker's book, I've been plodding through it and his previous opus (The better angels of our nature), and he is magnificent educator. What I love most about the book on writing are some of the horrific examples he dredges up from academic journals or creates himself to make a point, much better than the do's or don't's approach.

[DasnarkyRemarky]

What a wonderfully clear and beautiful mind Steven Pinker has!
As Richard Dawkins once said "I think its high time the Nobel Prize for literature is awarded to a scientist and no other will be more deserving than Steven Pinker"

[antoninguyen]

I randomly start this video and cannot stop listening to the speaker. It's awesome!

[robinwcollins]

"flaunt the rules": a question from the audience at around 1:05:00 and Pinker didn't say a thing. What a nice guy.

[balayogiv]

Rules of language are not only relative to the goal of the writer but also context and content.

[sprinkle]

"As there was a stream of people pouring into a shabby house not far from the entrance, he waited until they had made their way in, ..." --Charles Dickens, "Nicholas Nickleby"

[blackcockus]

I sat in on one of his lectures once. As someone who's fluent in two other languages, I think he tends to overgeneralize a bit (as does Chomsky) by placing way too much emphasis on the English language. Plus he's cocky as fuck. But I gotta say "The Sense of Style" is by far one of the most impressive books I've ever read on writing.

[iga]

Kudos to Steven Pinker! I've had great pleasure listening to this conversation.

[haydenbarnes]

I’ve noticed this when Pinker gives talks. He repeats - word for word, phrase for phrase - himself all the time: his lectures are always the same, and his writings follow suit. That being said, I enjoyed this discussion :)

[libertarianonwheels]

Pinker is one of my favorite intellectuals.

[Lebowski]

A charming talk, but I think it is time we discussed Steven Pinker's hair. Is it entirely appropriate to champion a man's ideas when he has chosen to adopt a coiffure that comes off as the unholy alliance between a Los Angeles pornographer and a mid-ranking magician.

It seems to have a life of it's own. I imagine it feeds off other haircuts, to become ever more powerful.

[emdiar]

34:15 Really Steven? Are you sure?
I think you'll find the order in which words appear has much more to do with the ease with which they can be spoken, the stressed syllables within those words and plain old convention.

I give you: Bacon and eggs - bangers and mash - bubble and squeak - bucket and spade - fingers and thumbs - Jekyll and Hyde - wattle and daub - apples and pears - husband and wife - mother and child - strawberries and cream - hammer and tongue - needle and thread - sugar and spice - sweetness and light - Netflix and chill - etc. etc. etc.

For every 'salt and pepper' there is a 'rosemary and thyme'.
For every 'Simon and Garfunkel' there is a 'Sonny and Cher'.
For every 'John, Paul, George and Ringo' there is a 'Crosby, Stills and Nash'.

[r.b.]

This is an absolutely fabulous talk. I especially liked the cutaneous rabbit example. 'Tap on the wrist' while sounding to the misguided as not a very scientific phrase, is actually much better in terms of facilitating understanding than 'stimulus' which could mean anything that fits under the umbrella of stimulus! E.g. a punch in the face, whilst having your labia zapped by electric crabs, were electric crabs real.

[karlpeterson]

Simplicity requires an effort to make the most out of the fewest words that are absolutely necessary to get your point across with the utmost clarity.

[demystified]

I loved watching it. Very informative and intellectual.

[lucid]

The problem with ‘Hopefully’ - and other adverbs that set a mood at the start of a clause, eg ‘Sadly’ - is that it looks like an adverb unattached to any verb. This can lead to confusion: “Sadly, Bill and Lucy are emigrating”. The speaker may be sad about it, but Bill or Lucy can’t wait to go. Perhaps such usage could become fully accepted if we all agree that after a ‘Sadly’ or ‘Hopefully’ there’s a tacit ‘I’m telling you that’, so that the adverb is understood to be attached to the tacit verb ‘telling’ or ‘reporting’.

[emdiar]

Whatever... I'm still not going to use a preposition to end a sentence with.