Graeme Brown spent his career in Australian education — first as a high-school mathematics teacher, then as an assistant principal — before moving into editing. In 2014 he co-founded Global English Editing with his son Brendan, and he shares oversight of editorial standards at The Expert Editor. He writes about the parts of writing that reward patience: the slow work of revision, how to actually finish a piece, and what reading widely over a lifetime teaches you about clear language. He brings a teacher's instinct for making ideas land with readers.
Editor's note: This article was reviewed and updated in July 2026 to focus on how these words work in writing. See our corrections policy. Editors develop a particular relationship with vocabulary. Not the spelling-bee kind — the working kind. When you spend your days fixing other people's sentences, you ...Read More