The Sense of Style

For example:

It began as a movement led by a few “young turks” against an “old guard” who dominated the profession.

Classic style is confident about its own voice. If you’re not comfortable using an expression without apologetic quotation marks, you probably shouldn’t be using it at all.

This refers to the use of words such as:

virtually, almost, apparently, comparatively, fairly, in part, nearly, partially, predominantly, presumably, rather, relatively, seemingly, so to speak, somewhat, sort of, to a certain degree, to some extent, I would argue

Writers acquire the hedge habit in hopes that it will get them off the hook, or at least allow them to plead guilty to a lesser charge, should a critic ever try to prove them wrong.

When a reader is forced to work through one stale idiom after another, she stops converting the language into mental images and slips back into just mouthing the words.

Examples:

Bread and butter

Coasting on its laurels

Renaissance man

Bite the bullet

Knock people's socks off

Sky's the limit

Throw the baby with the bathwater

Elephant in the room

Even when a shopworn image is the best way to convey an idea, a classic writer can keep his reader engaged by remembering what the idiom literally refers to and playing with the image to keep it in her mind’s eye.

Metaconcepts are ineffective because they are abstractions, which cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Could you recognize a “level” or a “perspective” if you met one on the street? Could you point it out to someone else? What about an approach, an assumption, a concept, a condition, a context, a framework, an issue, a model, a process, a range, a role, a strategy, a tendency, or a variable? These are metaconcepts: concepts about concepts.

I have serious doubts that trying to amend the Constitution would work on an actual level. On the aspirational level, however, a constitutional amendment strategy may be more valuable.

vs.

I doubt that trying to amend the Constitution would actually succeed, but it may be valuable to aspire to it.

What are the prospects for reconciling a prejudice reduction model of change, designed to get people to like one another more, with a collective action model of change, designed to ignite struggles to achieve intergroup equality?

vs.

Should we try to change society by reducing prejudice, that is, by getting people to like one another? Or should we encourage disadvantaged groups to struggle for equality through collective action? Or can we do both?

These are nouns and adjectives that lumber across the scene without a conscious agent directing their motion.

Nominalization: turning a verb into a lifeless noun, by adding a suffix, e.g. –ance, –ment, –ation, or –ing.

Example:

Prevention of neurogenesis diminished social avoidance.

vs.

When we prevented neurogenesis, the mice no longer avoided other mice.

Turning verbs into adjectives

Example:

It may be that some missing genes are more contributive to the spatial deficit.

vs.

Perhaps some missing genes contribute to the spatial deficit.

The passive voice, when misused, can read like an evasive maneuver, take away urgency, or draw attention away from the subject.

Examples:

Extreme Exposure to CO may rapidly be fatal without producing significant warning symptoms.

vs.

Generator exhaust contains carbon monoxide. This is a poison you cannot see or smell.

Using the wrong voice can make the reader's focus crane back and forth.

But it’s an ideal that can pull writers away from many of their worst habits, and it works particularly well because it makes the unnatural act of writing seem like two of our most natural acts: talking and seeing.