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Thirteen plain notes on how people speak, listen, read aloud and write, grouped into five topics. Everything is text; nothing here needs an account, and there is nothing to sign up to.
- How language develops 4 notes
- Listening and conversation 4 notes
- Reading aloud and plain writing 4 notes
- Speaking to a room 4 notes
- How these skills were taught 4 notes
Topics
How language develops
The ordinary arc from first sounds to an adult vocabulary, and what keeps moving after that.
Listening and conversation
Turn-taking, attention, and the repair work that keeps an ordinary conversation from collapsing.
Reading aloud and plain writing
The shared ground between the voice and the page, and how to write something that survives one pass.
Speaking to a room
Preparing, structuring and delivering a talk, especially when slides are not doing the work.
How these skills were taught
From classical rhetoric through elocution and composition to the plain-language movement.
Questions these notes answer
- Why do children understand far more words than they can say?How language develops
- Is it a bad sign when a child says 'goed' instead of 'went'?How language develops
- What actually makes a sentence hard to read aloud?Reading aloud and plain writing
- Why does reading a document out to a meeting usually fail?Reading aloud and plain writing
- Can you really listen while you plan your reply?Listening and conversation
- What is the single most useful question a listener can ask?Listening and conversation
- Why do people write forty-word sentences they would never speak?Reading aloud and plain writing
- Does plain writing mean using small words?Reading aloud and plain writing
- How long should a talk's structure take to explain itself?Speaking to a room
- When did schools stop teaching people to speak?How these skills were taught
Where to start
Pick the row that matches what you are about to do.
- If you want toread to a child this evening — start with Reading aloud.
- If you want tocut a long document down to something readable — start with Plain writing.
- If you want toget more out of a one-to-one conversation — start with Listening well.
- If you want tochair a meeting where the quiet people get heard — start with Listening well.
- If you want tostand up and explain something next week — start with Presenting without slides.
- If you want tounderstand how children come to talk at all — start with How speech develops in childhood.
Recent notes
- N-11Presenting without slides
What a room is actually doing while you talk, and how to build twenty minutes that hold together.
- N-10Plain writing
Writing that can be understood on one pass, and why long sentences are usually a symptom rather than a style.
- N-08Listening well
Listening is a turn in the conversation, not the gap between your turns, and it has visible mechanics.
- N-09Reading aloud
Why the page resists the voice, and what changes when you read to a child, a meeting or a microphone.
- N-12How speaking and writing were taught
Rhetoric, elocution, composition and the plain-language reaction: how instruction in speech and writing shifted.
- N-07Language in adult life
Vocabulary, register and voice keep moving long after the developmental arc is supposed to be over.
- N-06How speech develops in childhood
The ordinary sequence from babbling to sentences, and why comprehension always runs ahead of speech.
Complete index
Every page on this site, with its note number.
| No. | Page | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| N-13 | A-Z index | Index |
| N-01 | How language develops | Topic |
| N-12 | How speaking and writing were taught | How these skills were taught |
| N-06 | How speech develops in childhood | How language develops |
| N-05 | How these skills were taught | Topic |
| N-07 | Language in adult life | How language develops |
| N-02 | Listening and conversation | Topic |
| No. | Page | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| N-08 | Listening well | Listening and conversation |
| N-10 | Plain writing | Reading aloud and plain writing |
| N-11 | Presenting without slides | Speaking to a room |
| N-09 | Reading aloud | Reading aloud and plain writing |
| N-03 | Reading aloud and plain writing | Topic |
| N-04 | Speaking to a room | Topic |