Read More to Write Better, Hone Your Vocabulary

Mose heard recently from a former journalism student and colleague of his about a new PR job he's taken.

Although he has worked several years as a reporter and a media liaison in government, he discovered anew that people who work with words cannot assume they have nothing more to learn about the language.

Here's his note:

So I’m doing a release for a client, they send me a quote, I proof it, all looks good, but I have an English major here proof it for me too.

She sends it back with a correction – “this new thing the client is embarking upon is not an example of unchartered waters, but uncharted waters.”

No, I said, it’s unchartered.

No, she insisted, uncharted.

With the definition of each.

Well, a definition if unchartered could be a word, anyway.

Imagine my surprise. One of the most misused phrases around, apparently.

And then I had this sudden, panicked desire to go through Nexis and see just how many times in my career I might have used the wrong word … and a copy editor didn’t know, either.

Uncharted.

All these years later, you were the first person I thought of when it happened.

Mose was flattered.

In this example, Mose has two advantages:

1) He's a reader. You see words in print, you remember their use in context – and their spelling.

2) He studied French, in high school and college, and knew that the French word for map is carte (or chart). It's an acceptable English word, too, but why use it when map is more easily understood?

Maybe it's too late for you to study French (or Latin).

But it's not too late to read more.

Read good writing. It's a great way to improve your language skills and word knowledge.