MMIB Gavrila Ana-Maria

ARGUMENT, QUESTION, CONNECTIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS: AQCI

The Sense of Style

By Steven Pinker

1.“Like the classic guides, it is designed for people who know how to write and want to write
better. […]The book is also written for readers who seek no help in writing but are interested
in letters and literature and curious about the ways in which the sciences of mind can
illuminate how language works at its best.” (Prologue)

2. He is trying to prove whether or not the style of writing is important and he is trying to
understand, giving the fact the he chose four different styles and content, what makes them
work. Pinker identifies the techniques that make prose compelling and the bad habits that can
make it soggy.

3.I think it would have been really interesting to discuss whether or not we should find our
own style, copy it or adapt our writing to what’s „trending”at the moment.

4. „That somewhere is the writing of other writers. Good writers are avid readers. They have
absorbed a vast inventory of words, idioms, constructions, tropes, and rhetorical tricks, and
with them a sensitivity to how they mesh and how they clash.” I think, especially in this part,
I can totally agree with the fact that good writing, as in many things in love, is not
particullary something you are born with, but something you can learn. Or something that I
like to say „talent is nothing but hard work”.
5. Most of the points explained in the book, I also read in „On Writing Well’’ by William
Zinsser. “But if I eliminate so many words, how will I have any style?” The author uses the
analogy of writing as woodworking – if you make all sorts of fanciful designs in the board
but fail to nail it together well or cut the boards to the right shape, you wind up with pretty
junk. The goal of stripping the writing down to the bare essentials is to make sure that what
you’re saying actually gets across – in other words, ensuring that you’ve cut the boards right
and are nailing it together well. A few elements of style can serve as elegant finishing to the
piece, but the structure needs to be firmly built before you even start with stylistic elements.

6. Shows that good style is part of what it means to be human. It shows that there are
different aproches/styles of expressing yourself, and that you can grow, learn and
develope skills or understand new ideas.