You don’t have to care who Will Strunk is. That was just an acknowledgement - giving us the source of a good idea rather than claiming it was Pinker’s own good idea.
It’s not so much a tip on how to write well as a tip on how to think about how to write better. It’s an idea that seems obvious, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is going to do it.
A friend of mine once told me you just go in and cut every third word. For an obvious joke, it is amazing how close to true it is.
I think we could argue that insults are more poetry than prose. Like we might call him a lavvy-headed wankstain, or a wispy-haired, leather-faced, ballbag-eyed, huffy fuckbumper.
