So says Canadian Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker in his new book The Sense of Style. This story about his new book talks about politicians and academics and why they can't just speak with clarity:
"Most academics … effortlessly dispense sludge," writes Steven Pinker, the Harvard University psychologist and writer.
...
He argues that while many scholars do groundbreaking work, and have important ideas, "their writing stinks."
"There's just a lot of bad writing out there," he told me, and that has its consequences: "We pay for universities, we ought to be able to understand what comes out of them."
While he doesn't address them (I haven't read the book, but based on the article), I would also add lawyers to this mix. And by lawyers, I am counting judges and other decision-makers. It is bad enough that once lawyers get a hold of some document that they qualify it to death, add a million caveats, and then some - on top of that, we speak in all sorts of antiquated tongues.
Then again, if the courts did their job and applied the law consistently, perhaps we wouldn't need many of these qualifiers that Pinker derides.
