Firstly, I love writing quotes. I’ll be the first person to tell you that I get a lot of inspiration from quotes when I’m suffering from writers block or just need a little push. Many of these quotes I’ve shared with you in hopes of helping you feel the same inspiration or motivation to work on your own projects. The thing is, with most of what I put on my blog or website I make sure to research to ensure I am sharing correct information. This is a habit I’ve formed from my teaching days and I’ve only gotten better/ worse (depending on your point of view) since I’ve been researching for my book series.

Today when I was browsing Pinterest one of my suggested pins was a quote with the word HYPERGRAPHIA. I was familiar with this word, since it was in one of my lists somewhere on my computer. So, it was a surprise for me to find that the definition for the word was cut short. Now, this was the pin I had on my front page:

hypergraphia

Beautiful, right? The word that describes the overwhelming urge to write. We’ve all felt this way about writing at least once (or maybe more than once), but there is a problem with this: there is so much more to this word than those pretty four words.

Hypergraphia is an actual symptom for a brain disorder. People suffering from hypergraphia have the urge to write sometime incoherently due to them having epilepsy that causes changes in the temporal lobe. Sometimes those with this symptom will write in amazing detail, beautiful poetry, or utter nonsense. Their styles can change without warning and they won’t stop until the symptom passes or seizure ends.  It isn’t that they want to write but that something in their brain is telling them they have/need to write – even if part of them doesn’t wish to.

I understand that having that as the definition doesn’t get you reposts and people are less likely to like it… the word also doesn’t have that sense of motivation or inspiration as it had moments before but the truth sometimes is better than spreading false or – in this case – limited information. That’s why I edited this quote to add a little more truth to it:

NEWDEFINITIONS

I’m not looking for reposts or repins… I just want to make sure the truth is out there.

I know I’m strange, that hasn’t escaped me. I still find this word fascinating even with this edited definition. I think that has more to due with my passion for psychology and English. The point to this post isn’t that someone decided to post a half-correct definition of a word, but to help you understand that it is up to you to question what you find online to see if it is actually true.

Do your research – it will save you a lot of embarrassment in the end.