The Benefits of Reading 33y4u

Reading can help improve your life in many material and immaterial ways. In this episode we talk about a few of the advantages that accrue to those who cultivate a habit of reading. Improve your spelling – this is not a trivial benefit. People who can handle and discern words with excellence will quickly make themselves valuable in the workplace. Learn about the way they do things in other parts of the world – Expanding vocabulary and understanding will give you new words and phrases to apply to the world. These are usually contextual rather than stated outright. You might learn, for instance, that in England they call trucks lorries. This is powerful information. Deeper understanding of things – good authors take some part of reality, human experience, history, and present it in ways that make you understand it better, consider it from a new perspective, or just give you a new word to describe something familiar. Regular reading gives you words for something you have been thinking of already. It is an application of paideia - imprinting good patterns of thought on our minds. Better communication – the original meaning of vulgar was common, public, or plain; it was not necessarily an insult. Over time it came to mean unlettered, and later took on its present use to refer to people who constantly cuss; a cuss word might be the word in season, but ‘vulgar’ has come to be used this way because unlettered people, instead of using an appropriate phrase to describe something, will use a cuss word as a sort of universal stand-in. We are now living in an age where foul language has become so versatile as to be meaningless. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit officehourspodcast.substack.com 6620o