When We First Hear [a] Word, We

Once I'd Reached The Point Where I Could Squirrel Away More Than 30 Digits A Minute In Memory Palaces, I Still Only Sporadically Used The Techniques To Memorize The Phone Numbers Of People I Actually Wanted To Call. I Found It Was Just Too Simple To Punch Them Into My Cell Phone.

Since At Least The Middle Ages, Philosophers And Philologists Have Dreamed Of Curing Natural Languages Of Their Flaws By Constructing Entirely New Idioms According To Orderly, Logical Principles.

Back When I Lived In Brooklyn, I'd Sometimes Take The Q Train All The Way Out To Coney Island And Back, And Work On My Laptop. There's Something About Pushy New Yorkers Looking Over Your Shoulder That Really Makes You Produce Sentences.

Sequencing - The Careful Striptease By Which You Reveal Information To The Reader - Matters In An Article, But It Is Absolutely Essential To A Book.

Woodworking Requires A Completely Different Kind Of Thinking And Problem-solving Ability Than Writing. With Writing, You Take A Set Of Facts And Ideas, And You Reason Your Way Forward To A Story That Pulls Them Together. With Woodworking, You Start With An End Product In Mind, And Reason Your Way Backward To The Raw Wood.