My Goodreads Review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was the first book to introduce me to the “wonderful world of words” and all they have to teach. Pinker offers a convincing selection of studies and examples to show how rich language is in information about culture, history, and, most importantly, the way we think. (Reading this book reinforced my developing view of culture – from language to cooking to architecture – as an archaeological dig site full of treasures to those who know how to look for them).
After reading this book, I found that many word choices I had assumed to be arbitrary in our language indeed convey subtle yet interesting information that often offers a window into our psychology. Pinker’s fascinating examples including the distinction between mass and count nouns, a thorough treatment of “tense” in all its manifestations, the selection of a “reference frame” for a given conversation, and an exploration of implicit metaphors in our language (such as “love is a journey” and “giving is moving”).
As a man who has devoted his life to words, he also knows how to write and this 400+ page tome on linguistics is as readable as the Sunday comics.
The two chapters near the end on baby names and cursing were pop-sci fluff compared to the rest of this rigorous yet readable book and seemed tacked on just to boost popular appeal by offering quotables on sexual innuendo peppered with “fuck”s and “bonk”s. I was a little disappointed by this commercial sell-out, but the book stands as a great introduction to linguistics for those interested in how the mind works.
i’d also like to add that steven pinker is a surprisingly attractive man for his age (he’s handsome in a harry-potter-character kind of way) and that his class (a science core, aka a required science class for non-scientists) is deceivingly difficult. it’s like the book – substantial, but with the occasional references to sex and cursing to keeps the harvard football players awake in lecture.