Epilogue
We've reached the end of Learned, Vol. 2. Next week will be the first issue in Volume 3 and there will be changes to the format and to the content. I'll talk a little bit about those in a minute, but I want to take some time first to reflect on Volume 2.
When I started writing Learned, two years ago, I wanted it to be a reader-friendly record of the different curiosities I chased down. I wanted to write about whatever I was curious about, for my own satisfaction, and hope that others might want to read it, too.
Then, for Volume 2, I decided that I wanted to drill down and focus on words or phrases that I loved or that I was curious about. I had this idea that I could tie them into real life, on either a personal level or as a broad overview, in some sort of timely commentary. And...that didn't really happen.
I feel like I managed to stick to my plan with identifying words or phrases to write about, but did not do such a good job of tying them into anything other than the word or phrase itself. In fact, I think I ran the risk of turning this entire endeavor into a music playlist more than once.
More importantly, somewhere in the middle of Volume 2, without meaning to, I switched from a "here's what I'm learning" tone to a "here's what I'm going to teach you this week." Which is fine, sometimes, but - teaching is my day job. I didn't start this newsletter with the intention of trying to teach anything but to instead take people along as I learned things.
So, for Volume 3, I'll be switching back to that. There will still be a focus on words and language, but I'm going to go back to all the other random things that I want to talk about and learn about as well. I am going to try (again) to keep things a little more in-the-moment this year. Not political, but anything that catches my eye in the news and prompts me to go down a rabbit hole learning something will get written about.
The readership has grown over the past year, or so it seems by the two measurements I actually have: the number of subscribers and the number of unique weekly visits to the site. So, by those two metrics, the readership has grown from a handful of friends and family members to a bunch of people I don't know at all. Which is great, except that I don't really hear from readers very much. To rectify that, I'm going to try to put the Learned twitter handle to work and I'm going to try to get readers to interact with the site through the built-in tools, like comments and threads. If you'd like to participate, please do so. There are no barriers and no judgments, so, please, chime in. (If you'd rather stay in the dark and not make yourself known, that's cool too. As I said, no judgments.)
As far as the actual letter itself - one message I have gotten is that links are kind of dead weight. People rarely click them and they take a lot of time to source and implement, so they're going to go away. Not all of them, of course, but quite a few. Also, the formally delineated subsections are going to go away. There will still be topic breaks, but no more sub-categories. Instead, the letter is going to be a more personal letter, still in the 500 - 800 word range (because that's how long it takes me to find and make a point, usually), with a couple of interesting pictures and...that's about it. I hope you'll find it interesting.
One last change - I'm going to experiment with some subscriber-only posts. My plan is to begin with a short (300 word) weekly post called The Glossary which will cover any new, not-commonly used vocabulary related to whatever the main post is. So, if I write about learning Korean by watching Korean food-related t.v. shows, The Glossary will have a few key terms and their definitions.
The reason this will be subscriber-only is to, well, build up the subscriber numbers. Substack, the platform that this newsletter is built on, is designed to let writers communicate mainly by email. This means that having visitors come directly to the site is great, but that I can't really count them because I don't know where they're coming from or what prompted them to come in the first place. So, this is a push to get more people to read by subscribing - which is free - rather than coming directly to the site. I realize not everyone is comfortable doing this, and I apologize, but this is the way the game is played at the moment.
All that said, I hope you've enjoyed Learned Vol. 2 and I look forward to being back next week with Learned Vol. 3.
Definition(s):
Epilogue
From the Cambridge English Dictionary:
a speech or piece of text that is added to the end of a play or book, often giving a short statement about what happens to the characters after the play or book finishes
Post-Credit Scene
From Wikipedia:
A post-credits scene or mid-credits scene is a short clip that appears after all or some of the closing credits have rolled and sometimes after a production logo of a film, TV series, or video game has run. It is usually included for humour or to set up a possible sequel.
Notable Events of 1986:
You’re reading Learned, a weekly newsletter about words and language, written by me, Joel Neff. If you like what you see, please consider subscribing:
More information can be found on the About page, or by contacting me through email, twitter, or instagram. Thank you for reading.
Post-Credit Scene:
What comes after the end of the end? The post-credit stinger! Arguably, it’s the Marvel movies that have made this a must-check, if not a must sit-through-ten-minutes-of-credits part of the modern movie-going experience. But, if I’m going to borrow any post-credit scene for my own purposes, and, to be clear, I am, it’s this one:
Next time: Volume 3. That's it. Stay strong, stay curious. Learn something.