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| Zombie nouns? |
Are you a
grammar snob? Do you know and obey all the rules (avoid the passive tense,
avoid adjectives and adverbs …) Or do you believe that as long as a sentence is
understandable that’s fine?
Are you a
grammar snob? Do you know and obey all the rules (avoid the passive tense,
avoid adjectives and adverbs …) Or do you believe that as long as a sentence is
understandable that’s fine?
I lie
somewhere in between the two extremes, and I would never have claimed to put
particular value on style in writing. But (for a little light reading, while
away on holiday) I’ve been reading Steven Pinker’s ‘The Sense Of Style’. And because he writes so
clearly and with such style I now see
how important good style is.
I’ve always
said I’m not a fan of literary fiction. I don’t like convoluted phrasing or
books that are about ideas and not people. Now I’m starting to think that it is
only bad literary fiction that I
don’t like. Just as I’m not a fan of bad light fiction. In fact, I don’t like
poor quality writing in any genre. Now that Pinker has explained it to me, I
see that I am, in fact, a great fan of good writing, what he calls ‘classic
style’. Classic style is about communicating clearly and concisely between
writer and reader. ‘Classic writing, with its assumption of equality between
the writer and the reader, makes the reader feel like a genius. Bad writing
makes the reader feel like a dunce.’ ‘Good style isn’t about rules, it’s about
empathy, coherence and adding beauty to the world.’ Makes sense, doesn’t it?
Pinker’s
book isn’t only informative, it’s amusing too. I love the idea of ‘zombie
nouns’ – nouns made out of verbs and which are almost always less clear and take
longer to understand than the original verb. Compare the two phrases:
‘Comprehension is a necessary part of analysis’ and ‘It’s important you
understand before you analyse’. The first one has the zombie nouns.
A key piece
of advice from Pinker is that nobody writes brilliantly first time. The key to
good style is good editing. It takes work, but with effort we can all write
better. So that’s going to be one of my New Year’s Resolutions – to edit more
and write more clearly. How about you?
And yes, I
am really worried I have made lots of style errors in this blog. Please feel
free to point them out!
