As an experimental psychologist, Steven Pinker thinks about writing. As a linguist, he thinks about writing . In The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century , the author and Harvard professor mines both the science of cognitive psychology—how the brain processes language, how we associate words with meanings, etc.—and the art of language to re-engineer the writing guide. I spoke with Pinker about his new book, his grammar feud with The New Yorker ’s Nathan Heller, why the misuse of “literally” doesn’t literally or figuratively drive him crazy, and how italics—as used...
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