Good Writing: A Video by Steven Pinker

The actual title of the video is "Linguistics, Style and Writing":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV5J6BfToSw and it gives an amazingly concise (as concise as an hour-long talk could be) explanation as to why bad writing is so prevalent.

From sitting through that video, what I gained most was the point of view of a writer, and what a writer is trying to do.   On the way, Steven Pinker dealt with a vast number of little pieces of conventional wisdom that perplexed me, (and, to be honest, will continue to do so,) and put them in perspective.

The takeaway was that languages evolve, and words that Victorian authorities despised, become essential words in later centuries.  One such word was finalized, for which I did not quite catch the superior replacement; I suppose it was finished.  But these days, of course, finalizing is an essential technical term in a number of areas, while finished remains a general-use word that could never replace it.

There are numerous aphorisms that we are saddled with, which, incidentally just can't be jettisoned, because they are often useful :  Always use the active voice, for instance.  Using the Wikipedia description of the story of Oedipus, Steven Pinker showed how using the passive voice kept the continuity of the description, so that the reader was not distracted by agents who were entirely incidental to the story.  It was about how the infant Oedipus was delivered to his foster parents, despite his father's belief that Oedipus would someday kill his father.  (Let me say, as an aside, that the Wikipedia article as it now stands, is an example of the worst kind of writing.  Perhaps before my readers look it up, miraculously someone will get into Wikipedia and improve it, but it is certainly a disaster at this moment: 1:35 p.m. on Wednesday the 13^th of February.)

Another issue he touched upon (Pinker, not Oedipus) is the use of the singular they.  Some people object to the modern tendency to strain to be gender-neutral.  Now, I long to write a diatribe against Politically Correct Speech, but it can make me so many enemies that I have to think carefully about it.  But I believe gender-neutral expression is a good thing.  Males have had ascendancy in so many infinite ways up until the present, that we can hardly object to a sentence such as "The sole heir indicated that they would prefer to give the effects to charity."  This makes it unnecessary to determine, or to convey, whether the heir was male or female.  (That was my example, and Steven Pinker should not be blamed for its weakness.)

This is a video very much worth watching; there are many pieces of practical advice, and much attitude adjustment.  Language is important, and clear, effective writing is important.  There is a lot of humor, and it is politically neutral, so everyone can watch it without being annoyed!

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