The fine art of writing well

There is something almost other-worldly about writers who take a detour from their chosen field of specialisation to write with authority and passion on something just as close to their heart. Umberto Eco, the Italian semiotician and philosopher is, equally, a best-selling novelist. The evolutionary biologist the late Stephen Jay Gould has written a classy book on baseball. Closer home, Ramachandra Guha, historian and anthropologist is one of our finest cricket writers. 

And now here is Stephen Pinker, cognitive scientist with his “Thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century”. This is the sub-title of his wonderful The Sense of Style.

Writing is an unnatural act. It follows therefore that any attempt to write better or differently is doomed to failure because that is simply a way of piling artificialities upon an original artificiality. And yet, every generation is told both that language is “degenerating very fast” (a line from a complaint in 1785) and that “kids today are degrading the language and taking civilisation down with it.”

There is no need to panic. Clay tablets of the ancient Sumerians have complaints about the deteriorating writing skills of the young. In fact, “Don’t panic” might well be the subtitle of Steven Pinker’s elegant, calm (and calming) book.

Like Pinker, I love style manuals too. You will find them all on my shelves: Strunk and White, Kingsley Amis, Ambrose Bierce, Bill Bryson, Stephen King, George Orwell, William Safire, Borges, Eric Partridge, Lynne Truss. 

Some of the instructions from these books have become clichés: “Avoid needless words” (Strunk and White), “Good prose is like a windowpane” (Orwell). 

What they have in common is the belief that there is something called “style”, and a good style is worth striving for. Unnatural or not, writing is communicating; practice and an awareness of the craft can lead to a better style and greater clarity. 

If we do get worked up about language and its usage, then it must matter, unnatural or not. If you think about it, acting before cameras is unnatural, leg spin bowling is unnatural. Yet actors and bowlers hone their craft, enjoy it, and pass on that enjoyment to the viewers. Similarly with writing. 

Style, says Pinker, matters for at least three reasons: 

“First, it ensures that writers will get their message across, sparing readers from squandering their precious moments on earth deciphering opaque prose. Second, style earns trust. If readers can see that a writer cares about consistency and accuracy in her prose, they will be reassured that the writer cares about those virtues in conduct they cannot see as easily. Style, not least, adds beauty to the world. To a literate reader, a crisp sentence, an arresting metaphor, a witty aside, an elegant turn of phrase are among life’s greatest pleasures.”

Pinker belongs to that class of scientists who write (or should that be ‘writes’ – the book tells us) exceedingly well. It is a class that includes the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and physicist Brian Greene, who speak directly to the reader without the need to sieve their prose through jargon and mumbo-jumbo. One reason we write badly, says Pinker is owing to the curse of knowledge: the writer’s inability to put himself in the reader’s shoes or to imagine that the reader might not know all that the writer knows. 

The joy of Pinker’s book lies in its tone of easy amiability, simple and logical explanations and its use of examples from popular culture (including from comic strips). In this, it is distinct from the books by most of those mentioned above which tend to be hectoring and suggest that it is “my way or the highway”. Lynn Truss, for example, says that people who misuse apostrophes “deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.”

Pinker is gentle in his admonitions, almost apologetic in his mild insistences. That is not to say that he believes in laissez faire. He is aware that language is constantly evolving, and what was a no-no for one generation is commonplace for the next. Language bibles get outdated quickly.

Pinker’s bottom line is clarity. He is happy to use “like” and “as” interchangeably and tells us that “between you and I” is “not a heinous error.” But he does draw the line at “disinterested” which is slipping across the divide to mean “uninterested”. He prefers if we retain its original meaning of “impartial”. 

He argues that many so-called errors that purists get into a tizzy over are fine, and have been in use since at least Shakespeare’s time.

For example the split infinitive and the split verb. “Most mythical usage rules are merely harmless,” says Pinker, adding mischievously, “The split verb superstition can even lead to a crisis of governance.”

During the US Presidential inauguration in 2009, the Chief Justice baulked at having Barack Obama “solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States” and made him read instead, “solemnly swear that I will execute the office of the President of the United States faithfully.”

Then they worried whether the transfer of power had been legitimate. They repeated the original oath in private later that day!

So why should we attempt to write better? Here’s Orwell again: “(Language) becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. That process is reversible…”

Motivation for writing well comes from the same springs as the motivation for doing anything well. Or, as Pinker puts it, writing as something that can be pleasurably mastered, like cooking or photography. It is fun, to begin with. And with Pinker as guide, it is profitable as well.

Another joy of readings style manuals is provided by the occasional slips in them. Pinker quotes Strunk and White to show where that book has gone wrong. On page 191 in his own book, Pinker says, “A subset of these conventions are less widespread and natural…” Nice to know that this other-worldly writer is human after all, and occasionally uses a plural instead of the singular.

The author is Editor, Wisden India Almanack