Quotation of the Day

Entries in Language (1)

Language: The stuff of thought

Here’s a linguist, Steven Pinker, giving a talk that begins to explain why the messages we send are more than just the words we say, but how we say them.

In my last post, I said the way to be a better writer is to write. Many people leave it at that, and that’s fine.

But to take it one step further, as you write—and rewrite—begin to pay attention to how you’re using words, and how changing the order of those words changes things.

One of Pinker’s examples was this pair of sentences:

Give a mouse a muffin.

Give a muffin to a mouse.

They mean the same thing, right? Well, yes, but they’re not exactly the same. The emphasis is on different things, and they’re not the same rhythmically. 

Explore the differences, the nuances and subtleties that you can achieve with your writing.

Posted on Thursday, September 13, 2007 at 07:09AM by Registered CommenterRoy Jacobsen in , | CommentsPost a Comment