Why can’t you just use classic style through most of the document as a rule, then break it when necessary? That’s how we use all the other rules of style.
Although it’s been quite a few years since I read Pinker’s book, my impression is that he is advocating exactly that. I don’t recall any dogmatism in the book, it’s very clearly a set of guidelines rather than a set of rules.
Actually my main takeaway from the book was that it was aimed largely at stereotypical “stuffy academic” writing, something which I’m sure Pinker has encountered a lot of in his career—and variants of which can be found here too.
Why can’t you just use classic style through most of the document as a rule, then break it when necessary? That’s how we use all the other rules of style.
Although it’s been quite a few years since I read Pinker’s book, my impression is that he is advocating exactly that. I don’t recall any dogmatism in the book, it’s very clearly a set of guidelines rather than a set of rules.
Actually my main takeaway from the book was that it was aimed largely at stereotypical “stuffy academic” writing, something which I’m sure Pinker has encountered a lot of in his career—and variants of which can be found here too.