Stay ConnectedFive-time winner of Best Education Podcast in the Podcast Awards. Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing and feed your love of the English language. Whether English is your first language or your second language, these grammar, punctuation, style, and business tips will make you a better and more successful writer. Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast.
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Copyright: © 2020 Mignon Fogarty, Inc.
1019. This week, Jonathan Small, author of "Write About Now," shares what he's learned about the common struggles writers face throughout their careers. His book highlights stories from bestselling authors about their beginnings, the risks they took, and how they handled early rejection. I was especially surprised by the stories of shockingly bold decisions that launched more than one successful author's career. If you've ever wondered how authors get a foot in the door or get through failure, this episode is for you.
Find out more about Jonathan and his books at WriteAboutNowMedia.com.
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| 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.
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1018. This week, we look at the meanings of the word "board," including the differences between board games, table games, and table-top games. We also look at the punctuation of participial phrases, helping you understand when to use commas in sentences like "She yelled at me, making me cry" versus "She is the lady making me cry."
The "board" segment is by Samantha Enslen, who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at DragonflyEditorial.com.
The "commas with participial phrases" segment is by Bonnie Mills, who has been a copy editor since 1996.
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| 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.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
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1017. How did British words find their way into American English? Author Ben Yagoda shares insights with us from his new book "Gobsmacked!" We learn about words like "brilliant" and "ginger" that have crossed the pond, some words you might think came from Britain (but didn't), which politicians are prone to using Britishisms, and why some adopted terms might sound more pretentious than others to American ears.
Find out more about Ben and his books at BenYagoda.com.
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🔗 Join Grammarpalooza. Get ad-free and bonus episodes at Apple Podcasts or Subtext. Learn more about the difference.
| 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.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1016. This week, we look at why some verbs are so irregular that their forms don't even seem related, like "go" and "went." Then, we look at the surprising finding that corporate euphemisms are worse than annoying — they can also hurt a company's stock price.
The "suppletion" segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.
The "corporate euphemisms" segment was was written by Kate Suslava, an associate professor of accounting at Bucknell University. It originally appeared on The Conversation and appears here through a Creative Commons license, BY-ND 4.0.
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| 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.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1015. The Chicago Manual of Style is updated every seven years, and this year's update is a big one! I talked with two of the editors — Russell Harper and Mary Laur — about the major changes, how the decisions get made, and the history of the CMOS (pronounced "sea moss").
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🔗 Join Grammarpalooza. Get ad-free and bonus episodes at Apple Podcasts or Subtext. Learn more about the difference.
| 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.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1014. This week, we debunk misconceptions about gendered language, tracing the etymology of words like "cockamamie" and "gynecology." We also look at the flexibility of English grammar, examining how common words like "that" and "up" can function as different parts of speech in various contexts.
The "gendered words" segment was written by Samantha Enslen, who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at dragonflyeditorial.com.
The "grammar leaks" segment was written by Edwin Battistella, who taught linguistics and writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where he served as a dean and as interim provost. His books include Bad Language: Are Some Words Better than Others?, Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology, and Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels: Insulting the President, from Washington to Trump. It originally appeared on the OUP blog and is included here with permission.
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| 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.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
References for the "gendered language" segment:
Becker, Thomas. Autohyponymy: Implicature in Lexical Semantics, Word Formation, and Grammar. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 14(02):10 –136, June 2002.
Forster, Tim. Are Gendered Words like “Mankind” Inherently Sexist? Babbel.com, March 1, 2021. Accessed August 7, 2024.
Merriam-Webster Online. www.merriam-webster.com.
Oxford English Dictionary. Oed.com. Available by subscription.
Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/menagerie
Shariatmadari, David. Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English language. The Guardian, January 27, 2016. Accessed August 7, 2024.
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1013. How can fiction writers create diverse, authentic characters without relying on stereotypes? Alex Temblador, author of "Writing An Identity Not Your Own," tackles this question and more. Learn about the importance of community engagement in research, the pitfalls of overemphasizing certain character traits, and techniques for editing with an eye toward inclusivity. Temblador also shares her own experience applying these principles to her novel "Half Outlaw," offering a practical look at writing across identities.
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🔗 Join Grammarpalooza (Get texts from Mignon!): https://joinsubtext.com/grammar or text "hello" to (917) 540-0876.
| 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.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1012. Most words are different in different languages, but water from steeped leaves has only two main names: tea and chai. We look at why! Also, if you've ever mixed up words, like calling a butterfly a "flutterby," you'll love learning about what these slips of the tongue tell us about how we form sentences.
The "tea" segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.
The "slips of the tongue" segment was written by Cecile McKee, , a professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona. It originally appeared on The Conversation and appears here through a Creative Commons license.
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🔗 Join Grammarpalooza (Get texts from Mignon!): https://joinsubtext.com/grammar or text "hello" to (917) 540-0876.
| 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.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
References for the "tea" segment:
Ceresa, Marco. 2009. Tea: A very Short History. Daniel Leese, ed. Brill’s Encyclopedia of China. Leiden: Brill
Jurafsky, Dan. 2017. Tea. In Sybesma, R. P. E., Wolfgang Behr, Yueguo Gu, Zev J. Handel, Cheng-Teh James Huang, and James Myers, eds. 2017. Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill.
Tea Definition and Meaning. Merriam-Webster online.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO. 2021. A cup of tea…or chai? Available at https://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/en/c/1639559/
Mair, Victor. 2019. Sinographs for “tea”. Language Log post. Available at https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=41281
Östen Dahl. 2013. Tea. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) WALS Online.
Säily, Tanja, Mäkelä, Eetu and Samuli Kaislaniemi. 2019. Cha before tea: finding earlier mentions in a corpus of early English letters (part 1). Oxford English Dictionary Academic Case Studies. Available at
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1011. This week, we look at language patterns that may indicate someone is lying, such as how often they say "um" and the diversity of the words they use. Then we tease out the difference between being legendary, famous, infamous, and notorious.
The "language of lying" segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." A version of this story originally appeared on Psychology Today, and you can find her at valeriefridland.com.
🔗 Share your familect recording in a WhatsApp chat.
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🔗 Get the edited transcript.
🔗 Get Grammar Girl books.
🔗 Join Grammarpalooza (Get texts from Mignon!): https://joinsubtext.com/grammar or text "hello" to (917) 540-0876.
| 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.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
References for the "Linguistics of Lying" segment
Arciuli, J., Mallard, D., and Villar, G. (2010). “Um, I can tell you’re lying”: Linguistic markers of deception versus truth-telling in speech. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31(3), 397–411.
Bond, C., & DePaulo, B. M. (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 214–234.
Hauch, Valerie, Iris Blandón-Gitlin, Jaume Masip, and Siegfried L. Sporer. (2014) Are Computers Effective Lie Detectors? A Meta-Analysis of Linguistic Cues to Deception. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19:4, 307-342.
Fuller, Biros, D. P., & Wilson, R. L. (2009). Decision support for determining veracity via linguistic-based cues. Decision Support Systems, 46(3), 695–703.
Verschuere, B., Bogaard, G., and Meijer, E. (2020). Discriminating deceptive from truthful statements using the verifiability approach: A meta-analysis. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 35, 374–384.
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1010. We'd never be accused of belling the cat, but we did let our curiosity get the best of us when sniffing around common cat-related idioms. Plus, little did we know that we're already in Augtober and Summerween! Grab a pumpkin-spiced treat and come on an adventure through the looking glass to learn about portmanteau words.
The "cat idoims" segment is written by Susan K. Herman, a former multidisciplined linguist, editor, and instructor for the U.S. government.
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🔗 Join Grammarpalooza (Get texts from Mignon!): https://joinsubtext.com/grammar or text "hello" to (917) 540-0876.
| 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.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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