I am sitting right now, on a leather couch, on top of a blanket. In front of me is a glass door, through which I can see a green hill on the horizon, a highway with cars and trucks going from left to right, a bridge, and some utility poles.
I am telling you what I can see because I want to activate two neural pathways in your brain.
That first paragraph, with the “green hill” and “blanket,” does something different inside your head than the second paragraph, with its “activate” and “neural pathway.”
I read an interesting article today. You can find it linked below if you are the curious kind. The gist:
In 1953, an English teacher created a list of 2300 essential English words that cover everyday word use, both in speech and writing. The words were intended for teaching students of English as a second language, and cover around 90% of spoken speech and about 80% of written speech.
In 2023, the list was updated. It was expanded (2800 words)… some 1953 words (“butter”) were taken out because they are not common any more… other words that weren’t common in 1953 (“budget”) were put in because they are common now.
The article I read today asked, what changed? What’s different between essential English words in 1953 and 2023?
In short, impersonal and abstract words (“judgment,” “concept”) became more common. On the other hand, concrete and immediate words (“towel,” “wrist”), which stand for things that can be seen, heard, smelled, eaten, worn, smelled, touched, or felt in your body, have become less common.
So what? As the article says:
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This shift matters because abstract and concrete words are processed by our brains in different ways. When you read “axe,” your brain doesn’t just decode letters, it reaches for something: an image, a weight, or a gesture. The word activates both a verbal label and a sensory trace. Psychologists call this dual coding: Concrete words travel through two channels, verbal and sensory; abstract words travel through one. Two channels mean two retrieval pathways, which is why concrete words are “stickier,” easier to hold in a line of thought and faster to recall. Abstract words, on the other hand, are purely verbal, and have to be understood through language alone.
To put it another way: Concrete words are easier for us to process because they are bundled with a web of associations, tactile experiences, and memories that anchor their meaning.
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So don’t write how people talk or write, today, in 2026. Instead, write like they talked and wrote back in 1953, or better yet, in 1853, with more images and concrete verbs and nouns that people can feel or see or touch.
Do this and your words will affect readers more dramatically.
Actually, scratch that. “Affect” and “dramatically” are both new fluff from the 2023 list.
What I meant to say was, your words will amuse, annoy, disgust, needle, offend, puzzle, shame, and tempt readers more. (All those are 1953 verbs that didn’t make it into the expanded 2023 list.)
If you’re curious about the article I read, and the towels and wrists we’ve lost, and the concepts and judgments we’ve gained: