01 Oct The Knowing Academic
“Why Academics Stink at Writing,” an essay by Harvard professor Steven Pinker in the Chronicle of Higher Education (September 26, 2014).
I found this essay both extremely helpful and extremely annoying. Pinker’s examples are terrific. His explanations for why academics write so badly are really fun to read, kind of like Freud’s ideas. My understanding of language and science are different from his, but I knew that before I started reading and so that was fine. What annoyed me is how knowing he comes off—and how unaware he seems to be of the authoritarianism in his own writing. I think this is a major reason academics stink at writing, but he ignored it.
Here’s a piece of Pinker’s essay I especially like:
“English grammar is an enabler of the bad habit of writing in unnecessary abstractions because it includes a dangerous tool for creating abstract terms. A process called nominalization takes a perfectly spry verb and embalms it into a lifeless noun by adding a suffix like –ance, –ment, or –ation. Instead of affirming an idea, you effect its affirmation; rather than postponing something, you implement a postponement. Helen Sword calls them “zombie nouns” because they lumber across the scene without a conscious agent directing their motion. They can turn prose into a night of the living dead.”
loisholzman
Posted at 17:38h, 01 OctoberThanks, Diane. I keep trying!
loisholzman
Posted at 17:37h, 01 OctoberSchools for unlearning this way of writing is a really great idea! And, as you say, of course, social therapy groups! Thanks, Richard.
The nominalization described in the quote from his essay leaves out the “thingification” that accompanies a commodified culture. Just one of the ways the politics is left out of his essay.
Richard Patik
Posted at 16:54h, 01 OctoberThanks for posting this article.
I, too, find Pinker’s way of speaking (e.g., in TED talks) annoying. He often sounds all-knowing. I don’t know if it is the forum that amps-up his tone and/or it’s the academic environment he is in. But his quote about making up unnecessary abstractions is so true and well-stated. It’s an insidious habit, as bad or worse than the rampant use of the word “like”. Worse, I think, because such nominalized words carry learned-sounding plausibility that sneaks them by without anyone daring to challenge the speaker. One’s language usage develops, I think, not so differently than the way an accent is picked up in childhood. As there are schools for unlearning regional dialects, perhaps schools for unlearning and overthrowing the use of nominalized verbs need to be developed. Or better yet, more social therapy groups and people who challenge the plausible gibberish that such abstraction creates.
diane dickson
Posted at 16:04h, 01 OctoberThanks for this fun and interesting quote on spry verbs turned into lifeless nouns. Also to say that i have always been grateful that Fred had you as an influence and co-creator in writing.