Prepare to be scandalized. Oh, your stars! Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS. Show Notes The Science of Curse Words: Why The &@$! Do We Swear? , John-Erik Jordan, Babbel...
Jul 10, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 12
How to crack the attention economy? Coldcock your readers. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS. Show Notes: Breaking the Laws , Mike on Nabokov, Red Pen S2 E8 Dangler Untangler: Make those modifier...
Jun 04, 2024•33 min
Come for the critical reappraisal of ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ stay for Mike’s shocking revelation. Anon, good nurse! Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS. Show Notes: The Duchess of Malfi , John Webst...
May 01, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Oh, boy, are the “stick to the topic” ppl gonna love this one. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS. Show Notes: Underworld podcast episode on Medellin Vladimir Nabokov: Heat Seeker , Mike Laws, The...
Apr 17, 2024•36 min•Season 2Ep. 9
When, whether, and how often. With a little help from Humbert Humbert. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS. Show Notes: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov on Google Books A Teen’s Fatal Plunge Into the Lon...
Mar 29, 2024•30 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love nuance. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS....
Mar 06, 2024•47 min•Season 2Ep. 7
You best believe we seen this trend. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS....
Feb 21, 2024•37 min•Season 2Ep. 6
In which Mike finally reads the comments. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS....
Feb 03, 2024•40 min•Season 2Ep. 5
How Padma Lakshmi schooled us all on the "middle voice." Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS. Show Notes: "It eats salty": middle voice on "Top Chef," Language Log on "stimulus subject perception v...
Jan 10, 2024•40 min•Season 2Ep. 4
And a few we hate. And, for some reason, a few that are German. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Show Notes: The Staten Island Ferry Schedule (But sign your marriage license on dry land .) Out of Office podcast Phonesthemes @germanonliners...
Dec 13, 2023•55 min•Season 2Ep. 3
On the record, off the record, on background, deep background: What to expect when you're expecting to be a source. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS. Show Notes: A scrappy newspaper’s final cove...
Nov 29, 2023•42 min•Season 2Ep. 2
It's an epidemic, people: one-word compound nouns standing in for phrasal verbs. Is Kelly Clarkson to blame? Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach
Nov 08, 2023•26 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Being a podcast produced under the aegis of a university, Red Pen is about to make like the kiddies, ditching the books and reclining poolside for the summer. We'll be back after Labor Day, armed with killer tans, fresh Trapper Keepers—and an exciting slate of guests. Till then! Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen ...
May 24, 2023•8 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Does English offer an ungendered third-person singular, and if so, who uses it? Everyone and their mother, as it turns out—going all the way back to the Middle Ages. Yinz gotta hear this one. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters butt...
May 17, 2023•54 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Ghastly puns aside, English is pretty agreeable in terms of agreement—but still presents some pitfalls when it comes to the alignment of grammatical number or person. Join us as we get into all that, plus stick around for (more) chatter about ChatGPT and about the most kickass Finnish film maybe ever. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Pla...
May 10, 2023•49 min•Season 1Ep. 21
What do the musical Rent, the movie Seven, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, Kurt Cobain, and Lisa Simpson have in common? Why, they all imparted important, improbable vocab onto a young Ryan, Amanda, and Mike, of course (of course!). Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or...
May 03, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 20
The pluckiest conjugation in the English language; the tense that won't go gentle into that good night. Reports of its death have been… somewhat exaggerated. (Though if it weren't for country lyrics, who knows where we'd be?) Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click ...
Apr 19, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Unless you're that one guy from Goodfellas—or verses one and three of a classic pop song—it's probably not a great idea to repeat yourself. But are you doing it without realizing? Never fear: Ryan, Mike, and Amanda are here with a list of everyday pleonasms to keep an ear out for. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pe...
Apr 12, 2023•52 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Restrictive or nonrestrictive, essential or non-: let's dispense with the terminology and ditch the reference manuals in favor of practical advice (namely on whether and when to use those damn commas). Plus, more on everyone's favorite lovably fallible chatbot. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up...
Apr 05, 2023•45 min•Season 1Ep. 17
The world's changing, and so are the rules for moving through it. But did New York magazine err in its recent guide to 21st-century etiquette? Join us as we hash out canceling plans the day of, blasting out iMessages at 5am, responding "k" vs. "kk" vs. "ok," and… winking? Plus stick around after the bell rings for a spirited chat about fad diets. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite ...
Mar 29, 2023•58 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Do you nictitate, or do you blink? Were the Clampetts new-money, or would you call them parvenus or arrivistes? When it comes to word choice, English draws the battle lines across a few fronts: the plainspoken versus the purple, the Saxonic versus the Latinate, Hemingway versus Nabokov. So let's get into it. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Offic...
Mar 22, 2023•58 min•Season 1Ep. 15
There are a great many ways to write terrible verse—lazy rhymes, half-baked conceits, catastrophic metrical breakdowns. But where others have failed, u/poem_for_your_sprog sings the subreddits electric. Look on his works, ye unlettered, and despair. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now ...
Mar 15, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 14
What voguish phrase makes Mike drop his first on-air F-bomb? Which term gets Ryan's vote for word of the decade? And what contributions did you, Dear Listener, make to this godforsaken list? Smash that play button for the answers to these and other pressing queries (to wit, on Russian poisonings, the best Judas, and MTA campaigns we just can't quit). Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favor...
Mar 09, 2023•29 min•Season 1Ep. 13
We all use them, we all hate them: fad terms. How do they catch on? Why should careful writing eschew them? Listen as Mike attempts to answer despite a determined frog in the throat, and Ryan attempts to shame him for bingeing the Mighty Ducks reboot (while copping to watching the ne plus ultra of trash TV, Netflix's You). Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on th...
Mar 02, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 12
How litigious are the rights holders of the most beloved catalogue in music? Join us as we find out, stopping along the way to dish on Dick Morris, Ugly Kid Joe, Vladimir Nabokov, Mad Men, and (oh yeah) a dense little handful of troublesome marks: questions and quotations, colons and semis, dashes and parens. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Offi...
Feb 22, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 11
Pop quiz, hotshot: When does a period go inside a parenthesis? How many commas are too many for a sentence to bear? When do you use single quotes rather than double? Should you ever hit the space bar twice? And for extra credit: How is a poorly punctuated paragraph like pornography? Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red ...
Feb 15, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Genitives, gerunds, postpositive adjectives—oh, my! There's still a lot to say about the tangled mess of possessive forms, so let's get back to it. You won't want to miss Producer Amanda's first on-air appearance (to dish on the royals, natch) or Mike's unforgivable misreading of a fine point in the Chicago Manual of Style. Plus: Meat Loaf, Lorde, Three Doors Down, and Three Days [sic] Grace. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws P...
Feb 08, 2023•44 min•Season 1Ep. 9
When it comes to ownership in English, even the basics get real wrinkly real fast. Best to get right into it. So what do the Simpsons, Mighty Ducks, Danish film directors, and nepo babies have to do with anything? Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist . To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-righ...
Feb 01, 2023•49 min•Season 1Ep. 8
A deep dive into a "rule" that arguably never was—and certainly isn't now. So where did it come from? As usual, a poet's to blame. Digressions include the animal tranquilizer xylazine, the authorship of works credited to Shakespeare, the dubiousness of quotes attributed to Churchill, Restoration-era rap battles, and Beavis and Butt-Head. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen s...
Jan 25, 2023•41 min•Season 1Ep. 7
You might've BID on a vintage loom on eBay—but if you didn't get it, you BADE it farewell. If you did, maybe you WOVE a pair of mittens so pretty your sister WEAVED through traffic to snag them. Verbs with different senses can be tricky, but it's nothing to get HUNG about (and certainly not HANGED over!). We're here to sort out these and other dual-use words, when we're not getting sidetracked by this year's deep bench of Best Actress contenders, Owen Wilson's Central American fashion statement,...
Jan 18, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 6
