I can't decide how to rate this... Parts of it were fascinating. Parts of it went over my head. I probably should have read a book on basic linguistics and language formation and some books on theory before I tried this one.

If you have ready any Pinker, you will want to have this one too. I may not agree with everything Pinker has to say but his books are immaculate.

If nothing else, you will like the patterns in this book. Language is just so powerful, I have always been interested in it. It is something that has to account for itself.

My 6 month old daughter's growing vocabulary of grunts and syllables is the most fascinating thing in the world to me these days. This came from a remainder pile to my bookshelf a few year ago, and  The Blank Slate is one of my favorites, so I've got high hopes.
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Interesting, but I didn't love it as much as [nook: The Blank Slate]. It really took off for me when it got into the relationships between English and other languages, and especially in the last chapter or two where it got into the biology of language, and how evolutionary theory can be used to map linguistics like it can to trace the descent of organisms. That was fascinating.

Who ever said you couldn't write a book about verbs and grammar and make it fun to read never read this one by Dr. Pinker. A gem for linguists and writers and anyone interested in structuring a sentence.