A new SCOTUSblog essay praises Justice Amy Coney Barrett's opinion in Watson v. Republican National Committee as a model of clear judicial writing, while faulting Justice William Brennan's famous Baker v. Carr opinion for its reliance on what linguist Steven Pinker calls 'zombie nouns.' The piece argues that Barrett builds her sentences around actors performing strong verbs—'Congress enacted,' 'states began counting,' 'fraud ran rampant'—making the statutory question about mail-in ballots feel concrete and accessible.
By contrast, the essay contends, Brennan's Baker v. Carr opinion turns verbs into lifeless nouns, so readers encounter 'decennial reapportionment was effected' and 'the injury which appellants assert' instead of people doing things. The author suggests that even a voting-rights case can be drained of drama when abstractions replace actors. The analysis credits Barrett with following the 'classic style' Pinker describes, directing the reader's gaze to real-world events rather than a lawyerly interior world of ideas.
The piece is a single-source stylistic critique, not a legal analysis of the merits of either case. It does, however, offer a practical lesson: judicial opinions need not be dull to be authoritative, and the choice of verbs can shape how readers understand the law.