When you try to explain something, it tends to be easier to describe what it is not. This holds true to Pinker when he “declares what classic style is by sharing what it is not.” Pinker describes what classic style is according to him and what it is not. Pinker seems to make classic style to be a way of life, and not just writing.
Classic style is being direct and confident. “Classic style minimizes abstractions, which cannot be seen with the naked eye” (48). It is knowing what you want to say without any fluff added. According to Pinker, classic style is when:
A writer of classic prose must simulate two experiences: showing the reader something in the world, and engaging her in conversation. The nature of each experience shapes the what that classic prose is written. (29)
It is something that can be talked about and seen. Similar to when people say, “seeing is believing.” If one cannot see it, it is harder to imagine. A simple concept that sometimes people make harder than it should be.
Pinker calls to “attention to many of the writerly habits that result in soggy prose: metadiscourse, signposting, hedging, apologizing, professional narcissism, cliches, mixed metaphors, metaconcepts, zombie nouns, and unnecessary passives” as the lists of don’ts. Instead of memorizing the list of don’ts, “it’s better to keep in mind the guiding metaphor of classic style: a writer, in conversation with a reader, directs the reader’s gaze to something in the world. Each of the don’ts corresponds to a way in which a writer can stray from this scenerio” (56). Writing becomes too complex when it does not have to be. Relative to life, knowing what something is not (the negative), can help a person not make the mistake and instead using what they know as what it is (the positive), to make better choices.
Pinker ends the chapter by saying:
Classic style is not the only way to write, But it’s an ideal that can pull writers away from many of their worst habits, and it works particularly well because it makes the unnatural act of writing seem like two of out most natural acts: talking and seeing. (56)
Writing is similar to everyday life. It is not difficult, but instead, we ourselves make it difficult. Something unnatural has a reason, and can have a chance of being natural.
This chapter might serve us as we consider the making and the re-mediating of writing into digital forms. Knowing the background/history of something is not always necessary, but could be helpful. If we know about classic style, we are able to apply it to what we are doing. Classic style does not just apply to writing, but everyday life as well.
Works Cited
“Chapter 2: A Window onto the World.” The Sense of Style: the Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, by Steven Pinker, Penguin Books, 2015, pp. 27–56.
