海角大神

鈥淢ove over, Strunk and White鈥� seems to be the call whenever a new guide on writing style comes out.

In the case of one new book, 鈥淭he Sense of Style: The Thinking Person鈥檚 Guide to Writing in the 21st Century,鈥� the call is likely to be heeded. Writers of all stripes will make room for it on their shelves alongside Strunk and White鈥檚 鈥淭he Elements of Style.鈥澛�

The author of the new book is Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker of 鈥淭he Language Instinct鈥� fame. His style guide is one informed by a scientific understanding of how human minds process language.聽

In a chapter called 鈥淭he Web, the Tree, and the String,鈥� he explains 鈥渢he three things that grammar brings together: the web of ideas in our head, the string of words that comes out of our mouth or fingers, and the tree of syntax that converts the first into the second.鈥�

A main theme here is what he calls 鈥渢he curse of knowledge鈥� 鈥� bad writing by experts who have forgotten that some perfectly bright people don鈥檛 know, off the top of their head, what 鈥渜uantitative easing,鈥� for instance, is.

In his poster-child example, he traces the evolution of the wording of a warning sticker on a portable generator. An early version read, in part:

鈥淢ild Exposure to CO can result in accumulated damage over time.

鈥淓xtreme Exposure to CO may rapidly be fatal without producing significant warning symptoms.鈥�

A revised version read, in part:

鈥淯sing a generator indoors CAN KILL YOU IN MINUTES.

鈥淕enerator exhaust contains carbon monoxide. This is a poison you cannot see or smell.鈥�

The revision used the emotive words 鈥渒ill鈥� and 鈥減oison鈥� and specified a time frame. It also used 鈥渃arbon monoxide,鈥� instead of the more cryptic molecular formula.

We all 鈥渃hunk鈥� our knowledge; we let a key phrase summarize a whole set of complex ideas or events. 鈥淨uantitative easing,鈥� a term of art among economists, is a chunk, shorthand for a process of, essentially, printing money to stimulate the economy.聽

Six syllables is not much of a shorthand. But it gets worse when cut to simply 鈥淨E.鈥� When I hear or see 鈥淨E,鈥� it invariably cues up mental imagery of a great ship turning around 鈥� slowly 鈥� in the North Atlantic. By contrast, 鈥減rinting money鈥� brings up an image of a thundering press spewing out sheets of uncut greenbacks. QE doesn鈥檛 exactly mean printing bank notes, but I have nothing in my internal video library for 鈥渃reating electronic cash.鈥澛�

The curse of knowledge often afflicts the most thoroughly schooled writers. As Mr. Pinker notes, the advice to 鈥渞emember the reader over your shoulder鈥� doesn鈥檛 always work: 鈥淲hen you鈥檝e learned something so well that you forget that other people may not know it, you also forget to check whether they know it.鈥�

Professor Pinker, welcome to my bookshelf