

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
QuickAndDirtyTips.com
Five-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.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 9, 2022 • 19min
Why Some People Say 'Might Could.' The Spanish Influence on English. Mickle Story.
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

Sep 2, 2022 • 19min
Accent Hallucination. False Ranges. Thanks, Chris.
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

Aug 26, 2022 • 32min
'Skrrt,' 'Bottle Episode,' 'Skeuomorphs' and more. An Interview with John Kelly of Dictionary.com.
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

Aug 19, 2022 • 12min
What's up with Splooting? Capitalizing Titles. Momilltellya.
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

Aug 12, 2022 • 15min
How Gendered Languages Are Changing. Jugopop.
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.

Aug 5, 2022 • 16min
How Using Pliers Improves Your Language. Weird Possessives. Ducky File.
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

Jul 29, 2022 • 28min
A Riotous Good Time with Ellen Jovin of the Grammar Table
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

Jul 22, 2022 • 13min
Ripe. Lede. Prevent. Awesome. Fulsome. MacGuffin. Daisy.
885. It's time for our quarterly listener question extravaganza! I answer your questions about the words "ripe," "lede," "prevent," "awesome," and "fulsome" and share some knowledge about MacGuffins and the drink known as a daisy.Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/ripe-lede-prevent-awesome-fulsome-macguffin-daisy| 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

Jul 15, 2022 • 17min
Why Nobody Says 'You're Welcome' Anymore. Whose. Chimichanga.
884. People often ask why people say "no worries" or "no problem" instead of "you're welcome," and we actually found an answer! Also, we look at whether it's OK to use "whose" for inanimate objects in a sentence such as "The chair whose legs are broken."Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/why-nobody-says-youre-welcome-anymore-whose-chimichanga| 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-girlReferences for the "you're welcome" segment by Valerie Fridland:Aijmer, Karin. 1996. Conversational routines in English: Convention and creativity. London et al.: Longman.Dinkin, Aaron. J. 2018. It's no problem to be polite: Apparent‐time change in responses to thanks. Journal of Sociolinguistics 22(2): 190-215. Jacobsson, M. 2002. Thank you and thanks in Early Modern English. ICAME Journal 26: 63-80.Rüegg, Larssyn. 2014. Thanks responses in three socio-economic settings: A variational pragmatics approach. Journal of Pragmatics 71. pp. 17–30.Schneider, Klaus P. 2005. ‘No problem, you’re welcome, anytime’: Responding to thanks in Ireland, England, and the U.S.A. In Anne Barron & Klaus P. Schneider (eds.), The pragmatics of Irish English, Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 101–139.References for the "whose" segment by Bonnie Mills:American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. 2005. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, pp. 505-6.American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Fourth edition. 2006. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 1965.Burchfield, R. W, ed. 1996. The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Third edition. New York: Oxford, p. 563.

Jul 8, 2022 • 20min
Code-Switching. Mignon Snaps Over Numbers. Foomp.
883. The numbers sections of style books finally pushed me over the edge, and I have some stories you won't believe! We also talk about how cool code-switching is.Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/code-switching-mignon-snaps-over-numbers-foomp| 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