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Steven Pinker’s Sense of Style
Scientific American: Writing guides tend to be pretty unsatisfying. They offer plenty of concrete rules, but why, a reader might ask, should the rules be followed? The answer is usually “because” — as in, “because
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The Source of Bad Writing
The Wall Street Journal: Why is so much writing so bad? Why is it so hard to understand a government form, or an academic article or the instructions for setting up a wireless home network?
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Steven Pinker: By the Book
The New York Times: The author of “The Language Instinct,” “The Blank Slate” and, most recently, “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century” has never gotten in trouble
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To See Who Holds The Power In Your Relationships, Check Your Old Emails
io9: Power dynamics are everywhere, from our personal relationships to our professional ones. Do you know where do you stand in yours? Here’s a little psychology experiment you can run at home. Finding out could
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Can’t Place That Smell? You Must Be American
The New York Times: FLORENCE, Italy — WE think of our senses as hard-wired gateways to the world. Many years ago the social psychologist Daryl J. Bem described the knowledge we gain from our senses as “zero-order
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Our Use Of Little Words Can, Uh, Reveal Hidden Interests
NPR: One Friday night, 30 men and 30 women gathered at a hotel restaurant in Washington, D.C. Their goal was love, or maybe sex, or maybe some combination of the two. They were there for
