Mignon Fogarty
Podcaster. NYT bestselling author. Entrepreneur. Quick and Dirty Tips founder. Bad skier. Podcast: http://applepodcasts.com/grammargirl
Writer4 stories / week
People Have Been Saying "Ax" Instead of "Ask" for 1,200 Years
Language and pronunciation are far from immutable. Accents and regionalisms can suggest a great deal about where someone is from—the Dictionary of American Regional English catalogs the vast…
Dangling Participles
What Is a Participle? Before we talk about what it means to dangle a participle, we have to answer the question What is a participle? It’s a tough question because participles have a few different…
"Backward" Versus "Backwards"
This week’s Quick and Dirty Tip is about backward versus backwards because the question of which word to use just came up internally among our editors. These words can be adjectives and adverbs, so…
Is It OK to Abbreviate "Barbecue" as "BBQ"?
Is that party you're planning a barbecue, barbeque, bar-b-que, bar-b-q, or BBQ? The most accepted spelling of the word is "barbecue" because it most closely resembles the word from which it's derived-…
Why The Japanese Language Has So Many Words for 'Time'
When I first moved to Japan, I worked as a researcher for an architect. For two years I walked the city every day, especially its older districts, taking notes. I wrote "The Bells of Old Tokyo" in…
‘Dilemma’ or ‘Dilemna’?
Do you have trouble spelling the word “dilemma”? I’m nearly certain I was taught the wrong spelling in school, and when I got older and checked a dictionary, I was shocked to find that the word is…
The Words and Languages of ‘The Big Bang Theory’
May 16 brings the final episode of “The Big Bang Theory,” one of TV’s most popular comedies. The show started in 2007 and has run for 12 seasons. The May 16 series finale will mark the show’s 279th…
Why Do We Say 'Adventure'?
I’m sometimes fascinated to discover common words whose origins are not precisely what I had assumed. One of them, in particular, always puts me in mind of a favorite quotation from "The Princess…
‘Unquote’ or ‘End Quote’
Listener Question: "The question I had is when you speak about a quote. It almost sounds to me like you're saying ‘un-quote’ at the end of it. I'm hoping that you're saying ‘end quote,’ but it's just…
Taking 'responsibilty': Australia printed typo 46 million times on $50 bills, central…
Australia's central bank is taking "responsibilty" – or rather, responsibility – for a microscopic typo on 46 million bank notes.
Advice for New College Grads: How to Find Work as a Freelance…
Around this time of year—as new college graduates are hitting the cold reality of the working world—I start getting questions about how to find work as a writer. How did I get started? What advice can…
Red: Red Tape, Red Letter Days, Red Herring, Red-Handed, and Rubrics
Recently, I was listening to an episode of the Planet Money podcast, titled “Trump vs. Red Tape,” and after the hosts had said the phrase “red tape” for what felt like the 50th time, I started…
‘So’ and ‘So That’: Coordinating or Subordinating Conjunctions?
Today’s question comes from Matt Mullan, a teacher I met a few years ago at the National Council for Teachers of English convention. He writes, “I struggle to provide students with any explanation for…
How Do You Pronounce ‘Chipotle’?
May 5 is Cinco de Mayo, a holiday that celebrates the Mexican army’s victory over French forces in The Battle of Puebla in 1862. The battle was one event in a three-year war between France and Mexico.…
Dashes, Colons, and Commas
People sometimes ask me about the difference between a colon and a dash since they can both be used to introduce the next part of a sentence. So today we’re going to talk about how a dash is different…
'Sneaked' or 'Snuck'?
A listener named Salomé from Santa Clara, California, wrote, “I have a question regarding the word ‘sneaked’ versus ‘snuck.’ I religiously hammer into my students’ heads that ‘snuck’ is not a word,…
A Closer Look at Flaps and Glottal Stops in Standard American English
Flaps (or taps) and glottal stops in Standard American English (SAE) are most often found as allophonic variants of alveolar stops, although their distribution is not limited to this alone. For the…
Have You Noticed People Not Pronouncing Their T's?
Two of our listeners wrote in recently to ask about a speech pattern they’d noticed: the habit of people dropping the T-sound in words like “Putin” or “mitten.” They wondered if this was a regional…
The 1920s Fascination With Slang
Throughout the 1920s, the public was fascinated, if a bit confused, by the slang that was steadily seeping into the American parlance from all directions. In newspapers across the country,…
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Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Teach about Apostrophe Basics
This blog series is written by Julia Domenicucci, an editor at Macmillan Learning, in conjunction with Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. In this blog post, we’ll go back to some apostrophe…
The Languages of the Marvel Universe: 'Avengers: Endgame'
April 26 is the release date for “Avengers: Endgame,” which wraps up a 22-movie story arc in the Marvel cinematic universe. The film that started it all, “Iron Man,” was released in 2008. Since then,…