As Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty has been dispensing grammar wisdom for 20 years, and her book Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing has gotten an update. So what’s new? How has the scene changed? And will you be able to spot the phony grammar rules from the real (and equally bizarre) ones? Grammar goddess Mignon Fogarty joins us with a live audience of patrons. Join us! patreon.com/becauselangpod
Timestamps
00:00 Start: Everybody’s dooting
01:00 Intros: Daniel, Hedvig, and Mignon Fogarty
02:32 Mignon’s journey as Grammar Girl
04:38 New patron shoutout
07:55 Grammar Girl as an identity
14:28 Public shifts in prescriptivism
17:57 Two truths and one lie: Outlandish grammar advice
30:33 The intersection of grammar and manners
33:46 Oxford comma advice
41:00 Related or Not: Theme by Andy from Logophilius
42:12 Related or Not: deck and decorate
46:42 Related or Not: vassal and vessel
50:47 Related or Not: robot, rob, robe, Robert
56:01 Revising Grammar Girl’s book
01:00:52 Hopefully isn’t wrong
01:05:46 Actual good grammar advice
01:08:56 What’s changed in the lingcomm scene?
01:10:11 Cursed question from Hedvig
01:14:14 Word of the Week: liquid content
01:17:49 Word of the Week: sexy apocalypse
01:20:38 Word of the Week: tilcayo
01:22:45 Thanks to all and bye
01:23:09 The Reads
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Thanks to all our patrons! Here are our patrons at the Supporter level.
How palindromic are these names? So for example, Anna and Bob would be a perfect score. Min would be almost perfect, because M and N are close to each other. Letter similarity falls off with the square of the distance. Middle letters in odd-numbered names are ignored.
- John K 0.819
- Manú 0.819
- Nasrin 0.674
- Helen 0.651
- Tony 0.593
- Rodger 0.561
- Nigel 0.560
- Sonic Snejhog 0.541
- Whitney 0.529
- Kevin 0.499
- Amanita 0.483
- LingAnth 0.465
- Andy B 0.465
- Heather 0.461
- Lance 0.458
- Mignon 0.456
- Nikoli 0.455
- Jennifer 0.443
- Hedvig 0.432
- David B 0.431
- Steele 0.421
- Wolfdog 0.414
- PharaohKatt 0.407
- Rach 0.403
- Diego 0.391
- O Tim 0.391
- LordMortis 0.390
- Fiona 0.368
- Ayesha 0.365
- Andy from Logophilius 0.362
- Ignacio 0.361
- Joanna 0.353
- Daniel 0.340
- Martha 0.336
- Kristofer 0.330
- James 0.307
- sæ̃m 0.301
- Keith 0.299
- Ariaflame 0.282
- Linguistic Chaos 0.272
- Rosemary 0.256
- Amir 0.241
- Canny Archer 0.232
- Faux Frenchie 0.231
- Lyssa 0.206
- Stan 0.195
- meredith, musing 0.181
- gramaryen 0.174
- Luis 0.169
- Colleen 0.164
- J0HNTR0Y 0.162
- Becky 0.156
- Kathy 0.154
- Molly Dee 0.153
- Sydney 0.152
- Chris L 0.147
- Aldo 0.131
- Rene 0.120
- Daryl 0.105
- Ben 0.091
- Elias 0.086
- Laura 0.072
- Xekri 0.062
- Larry 0.054
- Lucy 0.051
- Yevaud 0.024
- Amy 0.008
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- At the Listener level: Oshin with a yearly membership
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Become a Patron!Show notes
Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781427204363/grammargirlsquickanddirtytipsforbetterwriting/
English grammar, adapted to the different classes of learners. With an appendix, containing rules and observations, for assisting the more advanced students to write with perspicuity and accuracy. By Lindley Murray. 1798
(on referring to children as that and not who)
https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_english-grammar-adapted_murray-lindley_1798/page/126/mode/1up
https://x.com/NatGeo/status/2100601922168209413
Brain matures at 25 myth | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_matures_at_25_myth
Verbal pitfalls, 1883 by Bardeen, C. W. (Charles William), 1847-1924
Entry for ANYBODY ELSE’S
https://archive.org/details/verbalpitfallsma00bard/page/20/mode/2up?q=anybody
Slips of speech, 1895 by John H. Bechtel | Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4983
The verbalist : a manual devoted to brief discussions of the right and the wrong use of words and to some other matters of interest to those who would speak and write with propriety; by Ayres, Alfred,
https://archive.org/details/verbalistmanuald00ayreiala/page/30/mode/2up
Don’t : a manual of mistakes & improprieties more or less prevalent in conduct and speech; by Bunce, Oliver Bell, 1828-1890
https://archive.org/details/dontmanualofmist0000bunc
The case of the $13 million comma and why grammarians are rejoicing
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-21/the-case-of-the-$13-million-comma/8372956
Oxford comma helps drivers win dispute about overtime pay
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/16/oxford-comma-helps-drivers-win-dispute-about-overtime-pay
Starting a Sentence With “Hopefully”
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/starting-a-sentence-with-hopefully/
Zhang, S., Brandt, S. and Theakston, A., 2025. The role of iconicity in children’s production of adverbial clauses. Cognition, 259, p.106119.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106119
How Many Apocalypses Have I Survived?
https://jkirchartz.com/demos/How_Many_Apocalypses_Have_I_Survived.html
Meet the First New Cat Species Discovered in 100 Years | National Geographic
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/meet-the-first-new-cat-species-discovered-in-100-years
Transcript
Coming soon.