Charles Wiegand - Author

Seven Years Teaching English, and I Never Noticed This

September 19, 2026

I just came across this on one of the SM sites, and I've never noticed it before, not in 7 years of TEFLing in CO, not on any of the many websites I've read about TEFLing or English in general: If you replace the "w" in "what" "when" and "where" with a "t" you get the answer to each question. So, that makes me wonder: is this an oddity in English that came about by chance? It must be, languages don't develop by design.

It isn't merely a chance oddity, although the remarkably tidy modern spelling makes it look like one.

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AI Can Help Write the Words Without Becoming the Author

September 12, 2026

The debate over AI-assisted writing often begins with a questionable assumption: if artificial intelligence helped produce some of the words, the human can no longer claim to be the author.

That view reduces authorship to typing. It assumes the author is simply the person who manually constructs every sentence, one word at a time. But authorship has always involved far more than placing words on a page.

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When “But” Doesn’t Mean “But”

September 5, 2026

Sometimes a single word can bend the meaning of a sentence just enough to make the reader pause. Not because the sentence is wrong, exactly, but because the logic feels slightly off. The word but is one of those little troublemakers. It looks harmless. It is short, common, useful, and usually behaves itself. Then, every now and then, it wanders into a sentence where it seems to be doing a job the sentence does not actually need.

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You Become What You Read, Even the Books You Forget

August 29, 2026

We often associate reading with responsibility: textbooks, assigned novels, industry articles. These are useful, of course. But the truth is, the books that shape us most deeply tend to be the ones we choose when no one is watching, when no one is grading, when the only reason we pick them up is that something inside us wants to know more.

"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."
--Charles Francis Potter (1885-1962)
Found in a speech he gave in Dayton, Ohio, April 1927

That's the heart of Charles Francis Potter's quote. What you read when you don't have to—when there's no external reward or deadline—has a way of shaping you into the kind of person you'll become without even realizing it. If you reach for mystery novels, philosophical essays, or memoirs of people you admire, those choices add layers to your thinking and your perspective. They help build your identity quietly, without fanfare.

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Marching to the Beat of Your Own Drum: What Kerouac Got Right About Trends

August 22, 2026

"Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion."
—Jack Kerouac (1922–1969)

Jack Kerouac wasn’t known for following rules. A pioneer of the Beat Generation, he wrote with raw honesty, spiritual hunger, and a deep distrust of conventional expectations. This quote, often shared among creatives and independent thinkers, captures his belief that true innovation can only emerge when one resists the gravitational pull of popular opinion.

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