875. When you say "Go get 'em!" you think that's short for "Go get them," but you're wrong! We look at the fascinating history of some English pronouns. Plus, we look at how Neil Gaiman uses the subjunctive mood in "American Gods" to underscore moments of uncertainty. WHY "'EM" ISN'T SHORT FOR "THEM" Written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of a forthcoming book on all the speech habits we love to hate. She is also a language expe...
May 13, 2022•16 min•Ep 875•Transcript available on Metacast 874. With her book "Children of Blood and Bone" spending 120 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, Tomi Adeyemi knows what it takes to write a great book. Listen in on my conversation with this charming writer about her thoughts on the writing life and what she has to offer in her new masterclass, The Writer's Roadmap . | Subscribe to the Grammar Girl newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . | HOST: Migno...
May 06, 2022•41 min•Ep 874•Transcript available on Metacast 873. Today, we'll talk about some weird nouns that are always plural, and then we'll go two-dimensional and talk about flat adverbs. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . | HOST: Mignon Fogarty | VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) | Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. | Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk . | Links: https://www.quickandd...
Apr 28, 2022•18 min•Ep 873•Transcript available on Metacast 872. The famous NASA "blue marble" image could have influenced people to make blue the color of environmentalism and Earth Day, but green won the day. In honor of the special day, we look at how the meaning of "green" has changed over time. Plus, we investigate the "fun" continuum and whether it's OK to use the words "funner" and "funnest." | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . | HOST: Mign...
Apr 21, 2022•15 min•Ep 872•Transcript available on Metacast 871. It's "listener question extravaganza" time, so I have some quick hits on discourse markers such as "you know," where we get the word "doppelganger," how to punctuate around trademarks, and the difference between "funny" and "funnily." It's a good one! | SPONSORS: https://masterworks.io/about/disclosure and The Jordan Harbinger Show . | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . | HOST: Mignon...
Apr 14, 2022•14 min•Ep 871•Transcript available on Metacast 870. We look at the linguistic difference between lying and misleading, and then because people often lie with numbers, we look at the difference between "percent" and "percentage" and how to use them. | SPONSORS: https://masterworks.io/about/disclosure and https://bit.ly/ggondemand with the code MACMIL and https://bombas.com/grammar and https://monday.com/podcast . | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar...
Apr 08, 2022•17 min•Ep 870•Transcript available on Metacast 869. Prodded by Bruce Willis's family's announcement that he is leaving acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, we revisited language disorders, and the kinds of things we can learn from them. Today's segment was written by Syelle Graves, who has a PhD in linguistics and is the assistant director of ILETC (Institute for Language Education in Transcultural Context). She was also a 40 under Forty alumni award honoree at SUNY New Paltz. You can find her at syellegraves.com . | SPONSORS: https://...
Mar 31, 2022•24 min•Ep 869•Transcript available on Metacast A few months ago, I started to notice people talking about spoons in a weird way, so I investigated and found that people are using an interesting concept called "spoon theory." Also this week, we look at why nouns are more complicated than you may think, and we dig into concrete, abstract, collective, and compound nouns--how you can identify them, how you can tell them apart, and what makes them fun. | SPONSORS: https://masterworks.io/about/disclosure and https://bit.ly/ggondemand with the code...
Mar 24, 2022•11 min•Ep 868•Transcript available on Metacast "Barracking," "sheilas" and "shouts": How the Irish influenced Australian English. Plus, what makes "NASA" different from "FBI." | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . | HOST: Mignon Fogarty | VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) | Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. | Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk. | Links: https://www.quickanddirtyt...
Mar 17, 2022•14 min•Ep 867•Transcript available on Metacast Have you ever wondered why it's called the "Oxford comma"? We have the answer to that and many more questions you may have about this controversial punctuation mark. Plus, we'll also talk about why it's fine to start a sentence with "and" (and why you were probably taught that it's not). | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . | HOST: Mignon Fogarty | VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) | ...
Mar 10, 2022•17 min•Ep 866•Transcript available on Metacast A listener wondered about the word "materiel." What's its deal (and is it related to "personnel")? Plus, "pepper and salt." "Groom and bride." "White and black." Are binomials the same across languages? | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. |Theme music by Catheri...
Mar 03, 2022•11 min•Ep 865•Transcript available on Metacast "Sticks and stones." "Bride and groom." "Heads or tails." Some word pairs almost always appear in a specific order, and linguists have been investigating why for decades. Plus, after last week's segment about square meals, a listener asked why it's uncool to be a square. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is part...
Feb 24, 2022•16 min•Ep 864•Transcript available on Metacast The idea of a square meal goes back to the 1800s and possibly mining towns, but the word "square" itself has a longer history. Plus, admit it! You don't know how to use curly braces. (We didn't either, but we figured it out.) | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. ...
Feb 17, 2022•16 min•Ep 863•Transcript available on Metacast How the "Witch of Wall Street" relates to the word "commiserate." Plus, the interesting origin of "influenza" and other disease names. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. |Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk. |Links: https://www.quickanddirty...
Feb 10, 2022•12 min•Ep 862•Transcript available on Metacast People often tell me they hear others say they'll be absent from work in a different way than they're used to hearing, so I looked into who says what where. Also, we take a deep look at how children learn language and what parents can do to help their children learn better. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is p...
Feb 04, 2022•18 min•Ep 861•Transcript available on Metacast Kerstin Cable, host of " The Fluent Show " shares her tips and enthusiasm for learning new languages. We talked about what to do if you're stalled learning a language, what the good things and bad things are about language learning apps (to help you learn how to use them better), the massively underestimated thing that will help you learn a language, and how learning a language can make you more creative. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing co...
Jan 27, 2022•28 min•Ep 860•Transcript available on Metacast The sounds of certain words make us think of things that are big or small, round or spiky, and the tendency is nearly universal. For example, people can often pick words that refer to something big or small even in languages they don't speak. Here's why. Plus, we look at the ways people sometimes overuse the word "of" and how to fix it. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . | HOST: Mignon F...
Jan 20, 2022•19 min•Ep 859•Transcript available on Metacast "Strollout," "insurrection," "yassify," "hard pants" and other words of the year for 2021. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. |Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. |Peeve Wars card game. |Grammar Girl books. |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. |Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk. |Links: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/ https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcas...
Jan 13, 2022•14 min•Ep 858•Transcript available on Metacast Was that uncle who wiped the floor with you in a card game a cardsharp or a card shark? Also, we look at what it is about using "they" as a singular pronoun that makes it sometimes stand out and sometimes get overlooked. Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/cardsharp-the-old-new-singular-they-grignug/transcript | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . |HOST: Mignon Fogarty ...
Jan 06, 2022•16 min•Ep 857•Transcript available on Metacast I have a big metaphorical pile of questions from listeners in which the answers are too short to be a whole podcast segment, so today, I'm going to string them together and do a bunch of quick hits. We'll talk about color idioms, formatting bullet points, and the words "fulsome," "presently," "anyways," "afterward," and more. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOIC...
Dec 30, 2021•14 min•Ep 856•Transcript available on Metacast Today we use milk and cookies for Santa to figure out when compound subjects are singular or plural. We also invent a new language term: santaback. We hope you'll share your examples! | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. | Peeve Wars card game . | Grammar Girl books . |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. |Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beauti...
Dec 24, 2021•16 min•Ep 855•Transcript available on Metacast Accomplished mystery writer Lori Rader-Day was drawn to the story of children who were evacuated to Agatha Christie's vacation home during WWII, but having never written a historical novel before, she faced challenges. We talk about what she learned along the way while working on "Death at Greenway." | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. https://j.mp/3oooKmK | Peeve Wars card game. http://www.the...
Dec 16, 2021•29 min•Ep 854•Transcript available on Metacast |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. |Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk . |Links: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/ https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe https://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirl http://twitter.com/grammargirl http://facebook.com/grammargirl http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl htt...
Dec 09, 2021•18 min•Ep 853•Transcript available on Metacast Does your group use shibboleths? Plus, I'll help you avoid common embarrassing greeting card mistakes. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. https://j.mp/3oooKmK | Peeve Wars card game. http://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/grammar-girl-s-peeve-wars | Grammar Girl books. bit.ly/GrammarPopBooks | HOST: Mignon Fogarty | VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) | Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Di...
Dec 03, 2021•12 min•Ep 852•Transcript available on Metacast Amirite? You have the tickets, don't you? Today we talk about those tiny questions at the end of sentences, what purpose they serve, and who is most likely to use them. Plus, we tackle that anxiety producting punctuation mark, the semicolon. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. https://j.mp/3oooKmK | Peeve Wars card game. http://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/grammar-girl-s-peeve-wars | Grammar Gi...
Nov 25, 2021•13 min•Ep 851•Transcript available on Metacast In this week's podcast, we discuss why you should never call your girlfriend your penultimate friend. Plus, we have fun and fascinating facts about Caesar and some of the phrases he gave us, such as "veni, vidi, vici" and "crossing the Rubicon." | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe | Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. https://j.mp/3oooKmK | Peeve Wars card game. http://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/grammar-girl-s-peeve-wars | Gramma...
Nov 18, 2021•14 min•Ep 850•Transcript available on Metacast WWII was a rich source of new words for the English language. Before the 1940s, you couldn't tell an eager beaver to shut his pie hole while you were being debriefed by the head honcho. And you'll be amazed by the origin of the word "Jeep." And in honor of NaNoWriMo—because you have to name so many things in fiction—we talked about the most common ways places get their names. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe | Watch my LinkedIn Learnin...
Nov 11, 2021•19 min•Ep 849•Transcript available on Metacast Today, I talked with Saraciea Fennell, who works in publishing, is behind the Bronx Book Festival, and is also the editor of a new anthology, "Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed," featuring essays from an all-star line-up of Latinx writers. We discussed the thought that goes behind ordering the essays in an anthology, the challenges of trying to edit writers using different dialects into one book, and more. Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course . Joi...
Nov 04, 2021•28 min•Ep 848•Transcript available on Metacast The words tombstone and gravestone used to refer to large stone slabs that served as a lid for a tomb or covering for a grave. Also, the human scream has a very particular sound that makes it especially scary (and it's a sound shared by the music in scary movies). Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course . Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter . Peeve Wars card game . Grammar Girl books . HOST: Mignon Fogarty VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-...
Oct 28, 2021•12 min•Ep 847•Transcript available on Metacast Have you noticed people switching to the present tense when they're telling stories? It actually has a name: It's called the "historical present tense." This is the article we mentioned if you want to read more about the historical present tense: Schiffrin, Deborah. 1981. Tense variation in narrative. Language 57(1). 45-62. Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course . Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter . Peeve Wars card game . Grammar Gi...
Oct 21, 2021•16 min•Ep 846•Transcript available on Metacast 
