Why English is losing power
A friend was shocked when young associates didn’t know the meaning of ‘teetotaler,’ a once-common …
Who is the invisible person next to you?
There are tricks to explaining complex ideas in prose, but the most important skill is holistic: …
More than half of adult Americans cannot read this
America’s Founders recognized a problem for representative democracy: average voters might not …
The editor who forced me to spell correctly
Marc Salgado was tough. As a soccer referee, he once threw a red card, ejecting a player from a …
How a brilliant writer can break the rules and get away with it
I saved Werner Herzog’s memoir for a year, until I would have time on vacation to thoroughly enjoy …
How to write clicky headlines (and how I learned)
Newsrooms had changed when I went back, in some ways for the worse. But for all I disliked about …
How to mix a cocktail of metaphors
One of my witty writer friends responded to my newsletter about style by suggesting I write next …
What prose styles tell us about our minds
English prose styles change through time like musical or artistic styles, but within the period of a …
In praise of long sentences
Shorter sentences aren’t always easier to understand, whatever you may have heard from your …
Please, please don’t use ‘experience’ as a verb
I’m OK with anything you do with the English language that makes it more expressive and doesn’t …