Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers.

879. Are people from Liverpool really called "Liverpudlians"? Where does the name "Tar Heel" come from? We have the answers to some of the most interesting questions about demonyms: the names for people from specific places. Also, has anyone ever criticized you for using the word "healthy" instead of "healthful"? We explain why that happens. And finally, we've solved the mystery of "sussies." Tran...

878. This week, we look at what makes wisdom teeth so smart, how to properly write the name of your degree, and what's up with the "sussies" familect? Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/are-wisdom-teeth-smart-capitalizing-degree-names-sussies-2 |  Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . |  Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. |  Peeve Wars card game .  |  Gram...

877. In an age when eels were sometimes used as currency and castles pierced the sky, “thou” was all the rage. But over time, it disappeared from use. Where did it go? And will it ever make a comeback? This week, we're sharing an episode of Curious State, a brand new podcast from Quick and Dirty Tips. Listen and subscribe to Curious State on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Overcast , or wherever you're...

876. You'll never view spellers in the bee asking questions the same way again after you learn about the schwa from Brian Sietsema, an associate pronouncer for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.  Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes |  Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates . |  Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. |  Peeve Wars card game .  |  Grammar Girl books...

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 th...

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 . |  Wa...

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...

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 . | Wat...

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...

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 f...

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...

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...

"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 net...

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 c...

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-...

"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 . | Gram...

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 |VOICEM...

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...

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 . | G...

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 c...

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 m...

"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 beaut...

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 Link...

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...

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...