Zombie Nouns and the Passive Voice in Writing - with Steven Pinker

Style guides often suggest we should avoid using the passive voice in our writing, but is that always applicable? And what are zombie nouns? Watch the full talk: Steven’s book “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century“ is available for purchase now - Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature. He is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and conducts research on language and cognition but also writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and is the author of many books, including The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works. --- A very special thank you to our Patreon supporters who help make these videos happen, especially: Alan Latteri, Alan Moore, Andrew Downing, Andrew McGhee, Andrew Weir, Anonymous, Dave Ostler, David Crowner, David Lindo, David Schick, Fairleigh McGill, Frances Dunne, Greg Nagel, Ja