Steven Pinker is one of my favorite authors. I have many of his books in my library and have his forthcoming book, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, on preorder (publication date is September 30, 2014).
A couple of weeks ago, Pinker wrote an article for The Guardian. The article, “10 ‘grammar rules’ it’s OK to break (sometimes),” is well worth reading. In the article, Pinker outlines the questions you should ask to “distinguish the legitimate concerns of a careful writer from the folklore and superstitions” and the questions to be asked — and if answered “yes” — to reject a grammar “rule.”
The 10 “grammar rules” Pinker addresses are:
- and, because, but, or, so, also
- dangling modifiers
- like, as, such as
- preposition at the end of a sentence
- predicative nominative
- split infinitives
- that and which
- who and whom
- very unique
- count nouns, mass nouns and “ten items or less”
I’ve saved the article for future reference. What do you think of it?
An American Editor 