# Steven Pinker - The Sense of Style (Highlights)  ## Metadata **Review**:: [readwise.io](https://readwise.io/bookreview/58494565) **Source**:: #from/readwise #from/kindle **Zettel**:: #zettel/fleeting **Status**:: #x **Authors**:: [[Steven Pinker]] **Full Title**:: The Sense of Style **Category**:: #books #readwise/books **Category Icon**:: 📚 **Highlighted**:: [[2026-03-10]] **Created**:: [[2026-03-14]] ## Highlights - THE MAIN CAUSE OF INCOMPREHENSIBLE PROSE IS THE DIFFICULTY OF IMAGINING WHAT IT’S LIKE FOR SOMEONE ELSE NOT TO KNOW SOMETHING THAT YOU KNOW ([Location 1046](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1046)) ^990631453 - Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. ([Location 1064](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1064)) ^990631454 - Call it the Curse of Knowledge: a difficulty in imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know. ([Location 1072](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1072)) ^990631455 - The better you know something, the less you remember about how hard it was to learn. ([Location 1107](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1107)) ^990631456 - A better way to exorcise the curse of knowledge is to be aware of specific pitfalls that it sets in your path. There’s one that everyone is at least vaguely aware of: the use of jargon, abbreviations, and technical vocabulary. ([Location 1150](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1150)) ^993383759 - A considerate writer will also cultivate the habit of adding a few words of explanation to common technical terms, as in “Arabidopsis, a flowering mustard plant,” rather than the bare “Arabidopsis” (which I’ve seen in many science articles). ([Location 1177](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1177)) ^993383760 - Readers will also thank a writer for the copious use of for example, as in, and such as, because an explanation without an example is little better than no explanation at all. ([Location 1181](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1181)) ^993383761 - Sometimes two examples are better than one, because they allow the reader to triangulate on which aspect of the example is relevant to the definition. ([Location 1185](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1185)) ^993383762 - Psychologists used to think that its capacity was around seven items (plus or minus two), but later downsized even that estimate, and today believe it is closer to three or four. ([Location 1218](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1218)) ^993383763 - But in general it’s wiser to assume too little than too much. ([Location 1251](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1251)) ^995463772 - The key is to assume that your readers are as intelligent and sophisticated as you are, but that they happen not to know something you know. ([Location 1256](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1256)) ^995463773 - Many experiments have shown that readers understand and remember material far better when it is expressed in concrete language that allows them to form visual images, like the sentences on the right: ([Location 1296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00INIYG74&location=1296)) ^995463774