STYLE AS A MODE OF UNDERSTANDING

“Style” is a word that surfaces when we are talking about different means to a single end. Style, like “character,” is a construct; it has no “objective correlative” (Ackerman 1962: 228). Style is not so much a feature, like periodicity or low words, as a meta-feature, referring always to something “about” a feature. We can locate style in almost every branch of human endeavor – cooking, clothes, cars, computer programs, estate planning, tennis serves, weddings. The anthropologist A. L. Kroeber observed that “we can speak of styles of governing, of waging war, of prosecuting industry or commerce, of promoting science, even of speculative reasoning” (1923: 137). All human cultures, no matter how harsh their environment or limited their resources, create stylish objects and practice stylish actions.

Different means to a single end: style is usually manner not matter, form not function or content – how you grip the tennis racket (not whether the ball goes in or out); how a fabric is cut and dyed (not whether it protects you from rain or snow); how a clarinetist phrases that melody (as opposed to what melody she chooses to play). This is a common-sense idea of style, the one that gets the most play in dictionary entries on the word.