895. A listener asked why he's hearing people refer to men as "widows," and we found a surprising history. Also, I recently mentioned a blurb I wrote, and a reader wanted to know where we get that funny word "blurb."| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/when-is-a-man-a-widow| Merriam-Webster "blurb" article.| Grammar Girl sci-fi versus fantasy article.| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.| Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.| Peeve Wars card game. | Grammar Girl books. | HOST: Mignon Fogarty| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.Audio engineer: Nathan SemesEditor: Adam CecilAdvertising Operations Specialist: Morgan ChristiansonMarketing and Publicity Assistant: Davina TomlinDigital Operations Specialist: Holly HutchingsIntern: Kamryn Lacy| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. LinkedIn.

894. Whether you're getting ready for National Novel Writing Month or just want to watch movies or read novels with more insight, this interview with fiction editor Joshua Essoe will help you about mood and atmosphere in ways you probably haven't considered before.| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/mood-atmosphere-in-fiction-an-interview-with-joshua-essoe| Joshua Essoe's website.| Storybundle book bundles.| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.| Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.| Peeve Wars card game. | Grammar Girl books. | HOST: Mignon Fogarty| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.Audio engineer: Nathan SemesEditor: Adam CecilAdvertising Operations Specialist: Morgan ChristiansonMarketing and Publicity Assistant: Davina TomlinDigital Operations Specialist: Holly HutchingsIntern: Kamryn Lacy| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. LinkedIn.

893. You may be surprised by the origin of the split infinitive "rule" and by the times they are OK...or even necessary! Also, we look at slang phrases that drop whole grammatical elements and how they reinforce that in-group/out-group feeling of slang.| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/split-infinitives| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.| Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.| Peeve Wars card game. | Grammar Girl books. | HOST: Mignon Fogarty| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.Audio engineer: Nathan SemesEditor: Adam CecilAdvertising Operations Specialist: Morgan ChristiansonMarketing and Publicity Assistant: Davina TomlinDigital Operations Specialist: Holly HutchingsIntern: Kamryn Lacy| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. LinkedIn. 

892. We recently got a question about why people use a type of double-verb construction, such as "We might could go to the store." We have the answer! Plus, in honor of the upcoming National Hispanic Heritage Month, we look at the influence Spanish has had on English. You probably know more Spanish words than you realize!Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/why-some-people-say-might-could"Double Modals" was written by Neal Whitman."The Spanish Influence on English" was written by Susan K. Herman| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.| Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.| Peeve Wars card game. | Grammar Girl books. | HOST: Mignon Fogarty| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.Audio engineer: Nathan SemesEditor: Adam CecilAdvertising Operations Specialist: Morgan ChristiansonMarketing and Publicity Assistant: Davina TomlinDigital Operations Specialist: Holly Hutchings.| Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links:https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcastshttps://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirlhttp://twitter.com/grammargirlhttp://facebook.com/grammargirlhttp://instagram.com/thegrammargirlhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl

891. Your mind will be blown when you learn about accent hallucination. (Mine was!) And then we'll learn how to avoid false ranges.Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/accent-hallucination-false-rangesReferences for the Accent Hallucination segment by Valerie Fridland:Babel, M., & Russell, J. (2015). Expectations and speech intelligibility. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 137(5), 2823–2833. Bradlow, A. R., and Bent, T. (2008). Perceptual adaptation to non-nativeSpeech. Cognition 106(2), 707–729.Lev-Ari, S., & Keysar, B. (2010). Why don't we believe non-native speakers? the influence of accent on credibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(6), 1093-1096:Rubin, D.L. 1992. Nonlanguage factors affecting undergraduates' judgments of nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants. Res High Educ 33, 511–531 Vaughn C. R. (2019). Expectations about the source of a speaker's accent affect accent adaptation. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 145(5), 3218. References for the False Range segment by Rhiannon Root:Walsh, B. "Everything's Ranging." The Slot. https://www.theslot.com/range.html (accessed September 1, 2022).Grammar Monkeys (McLendon, L.). "Home, home on the range." Madam Grammar. May 20, 2010. https://madamgrammar.com/tag/false-range/ (accessed September 1, 2022).McIntyre, J. "Getting the range." You Don't Say. February 10, 2010. http://johnemcintyre.blogspot.com/2010/02/getting-range.html (accessed September 1, 2022)."Commas." The Chicago Manual of Style (Q&A), 17th edition. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Commas/faq0062.html (accessed September 1, 2022).Corbett, P.B. "Everything from this to that." After Deadline: New York Times Blog. August 24, 2010. https://archive.nytimes.com/afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/everything-from-this-to-that/ (accessed September 1, 2022)."Appendix." SeaWorld. https://seaworld.org/animals/all-about/penguins/appendix/ (accessed September 1, 2022).| 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) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.| Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links:https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcastshttps://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirlhttp://twitter.com/grammargirlhttp://facebook.com/grammargirlhttp://instagram.com/thegrammargirlhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl

890. John Kelly, senior director of editorial at Dictionary.com, talks with Mignon about a bunch of fun new words and about how words get added to the dictionary in general. Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/skrrt-bottle-episode-skeuomorphs| 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) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links:TwitterFacebookInstagramLinkedInYouTubePinterestTikTok  

889. Splooting squirrels have taken the internet by storm. We look at where this fun word comes from and how far back it goes. Plus, I help you decide which title capitalization rules to follow.Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/whats-up-with-splooting-capitalizing-titles-momilltellya| 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) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.| Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links:https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcastshttps://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirlhttp://twitter.com/grammargirlhttp://facebook.com/grammargirlhttp://instagram.com/thegrammargirlhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl

888. This week we take a fascinating look at how highly gendered languages are dealing with the drive to become more inclusive. Plus, we look at the differences between "simple" and "simplistic" and "backward" and "backwards."Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/how-gendered-languages-are-changing-jugopop| 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) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.| Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links:https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcastshttps://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirlhttp://twitter.com/grammargirlhttp://facebook.com/grammargirlhttp://instagram.com/thegrammargirlhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girlReferences for the gendered language segment by Valerie Fridland:Braun, F., Sczesny, S., & Stahlberg, D. (2005). Cognitive Effects of Masculine Generics in German: An Overview of Empirical Findings.  Communications (Sankt Augustin), 30(1), 1-21. Carreiras, M., Garnham, A., Oakhill, J., & Cain, K. (1996). The use of stereotypical gender information in constructing a mental model: evidence from English and Spanish. The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology, 49(3), 639–663. DeFranza, D., Mishra, H., & Mishra, A. (2020). How language shapes prejudice against women: An examination across 45 world languages. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(1), 7–22.Eilers, S., Tiffin-Richards, S. P., & Schroeder, S. (2018). Individual differences in children’s pronoun processing during reading: Detection of incongruence is associated with higher reading fluency and more regressions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 173, 250-267.Stahlberg, D., Braun, F., Irmen, L., & Sczesny, S. (2007). Representation of the sexes in language. In K. Fiedler (Ed.), Social communication. A volume in the series Frontiers of Social Psychology.163-187.Moehlman, Lara. (2018) Can Hebrew Be Gender Neutral? https://momentmag.com/can-hebrew-be-gender-neutral/. Accessed 8.7.2022.

887. An amazing study shows that tool use and language are connected in the brain and shows how using one can make you better at the other, and vice versa. Plus we look at some tricky possessives. Can you say "a friend of mine's car"?Transcript:  https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/how-using-pliers-improves-your-languageThe tools and language segment is by Claudio Brozzoli a researcher at INSERM Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, and the Impact team at the Karolinska Institute, and Simon Thibault, a Postdoctoral Researcher at Lyon Neuroscience Research Center. It originally appeared on The Conversation and appears here through a Creative Commons license. Read the original (without my interjections).| 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.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links:https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcastshttps://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirlhttp://twitter.com/grammargirlhttp://facebook.com/grammargirlhttp://instagram.com/thegrammargirlhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl

886. The delightful Ellen Jovin of the Grammar Table (you may have seen her sitting on the street answering grammar questions in your city) joined me to talk about her new book, "Rebel with a Clause," what possessed her to set up the Grammar Table in the first place, why Twitter is vastly better than Facebook for doing language polls, and more.Transcript:  https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/ellen-jovin-of-the-grammar-table| 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.| Grammar Girl Social Media Links:https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcastshttps://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirlhttp://twitter.com/grammargirlhttp://facebook.com/grammargirlhttp://instagram.com/thegrammargirlhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl