One of my professors was told while writing her doctorate thesis, “If you can’t explain it to your grandmother, you don’t understand it well enough.” Ignoring the statement’s strong prejudice against grandmothers (just kidding), I think it contains a very interesting implication. Basically, the statement claims that ordinary vocabulary and concepts are sufficient to [...]

Let me tell you a little story. There was once a nice kid who liked to write. So he got a job that involved writing, signed up for classes that involved writing and reading full time at a university, and started two blogs. Guess what? Pretty soon he was having a hard time keeping up.
I [...]

Actually I don’t. But there are people who say they do, and that upsets me. Not because I don’t think that they are entitled to their own opinions and tastes - if any person truly hates poetry, I feel more sorry for than censorious of his deprivation.
Actually, nobody really hates poetry, deep down inside. A [...]

“My mom is one of those people whose handwriting looks like all L’s,” said Tony. We were in an English class I took last semester, and the discussion had briefly centered on the topic of reading cursive, especially in old manuscripts. What I didn’t know then was that there is a name for the [...]