While I was building this blog, I had to come up with a tag line, a subtitle-snapshot to show what I’m about. So I chose “apt words to light the world.” But what does apt mean? It is more than the abbreviation for apartment, and it is not some typo for every smartphone owner’s favorite collectible.

Webster’s dictionary defines it several ways: 1) likely to do something, 2) very well qualified, 3) quick to learn, and 4) appropriate or suitable. Let’s focus for a moment on the last meaning.

King Solomon of Israel lived in the 900’s B.C. History describes him as an extremely wise man and just ruler. He once wrote that a judge’s correct ruling is like golden apples in a silver holder. Another of his pithy sayings has been translated into English as, “A person finds joy in giving an apt reply, and how good is a timely word!”

In 2017, the word apt sounds quaint, remote. But the fact that it means timely is proof that we should reintroduce it into our vocabulary – conceptually if not literally. In a world overrun with a cacophony of words – many of them butchered, empty, false, or degrading – there is a desperate place (and hunger) for apt words. That’s what I’m about: in writing and in speaking, offering words that are appropriate, suitable, timely. Words that bring life and build up.

Serious writers are charged to say things in a fresh way that will attract the attention of readers and publishers alike. I suggest that aptness and freshness are not always the same–and that aptness is ultimately far more important.

No matter how you use written communication in your daily life – whether professionally, academically, or personally – consider this. We don’t need more new words to cloud the waters of meaning, and we don’t need more fresh words that will drift away with the tide of fads. We need well-written and spoken words that are meaningful and useful. Apt words are rarely new – they are often reminders of truth we should know, the direction we should go, and the love in which we should grow. The new will fade, and the fresh will become stale. But the well-written word is a thing of beauty. And the apt word – that is golden.