Based on a common picture of dictionary editors as gatekeepers, they sit in judgment on which new words are legitimate enough to let through the door. The actual process runs the other way. A word doesn't get approved and then start appearing in print — it has to appear, repeatedly, ...Read More
A common assumption treats simple sentences as a sign of simple thinking, and long, elaborate ones as evidence of a sharper mind behind them. The research on how readers actually judge writing points the other way, and the tools built to measure readability were never designed to reward simplicity ...Read More
A book I taught for the better part of two decades reads like a different novel to me now than it did in my thirties. Same paperback, same underlined passages from years of lesson planning, same chapters in the same order. What changed wasn't the text. It was ...Read More
A reader opens a long article on their phone, gets three paragraphs in, and starts thumbing down the screen in short, fast strokes — eyes catching a bolded phrase here, a number there, landing properly only when something looks like a conclusion. Ask them five minutes later what ...Read More
You finish a good book, close it with the pleasant sense that you have understood it, and a month later you can recall the cover, a general mood, and almost nothing else. This is the ordinary experience of reading, and it is not a sign of a poor ...Read More
My wife can finish a novel in an afternoon and tell you exactly how it made her feel. I have never been able to read that way, and after a career spent first teaching and then editing, I have stopped apologising for it. I read slowly, and I ...Read More