Imagine being hospitalized against your will and handed a rights form that says “habeas corpus.” Plain language fixes that.

Plain language isn’t dumbing down. It’s good writing.

This week, I talked with Iva Cheung about plain language and got tips including test documents with five readers, use jargon when readers need it, and replace nominalizations with verbs.

Learn more:

WATCH: https://youtu.be/QvGcABMS00I
READ: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/transcripts/grammar-girl/1191/
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

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Which is correct: "a real trouper" or "a real trooper"?

The persevering-through-adversity phrase came from theater, so "trouper" (with a U) was the only correct spelling until ~1970. But "trooper" surpassed it in the late 1990s.

Garner's Modern English Usage doesn't like it, but people seem to be voting with their usage for the other spelling.

WATCH: https://youtu.be/3YHP2mx27Go
READ: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/transcripts/grammar-girl/1190/
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

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Have you ever groaned at an elaborate pun? It might have been a *feghoot*!

The term comes from a 1956 sci-fi series about time-traveling troubleshooter Ferdinand Feghoot, whose adventures always ended in cringey puns.

This episode is guaranteed to make you laugh, and there's even one piece of "Rocky & Bullwinkle" trivia that made me say, "No way!" out loud. :)

WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bd5-Dl7FsA&t=119s
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

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In today's show, Peter Sokolowski traces the word "dictionary" back to a 16th-century Latin work by a monk named Calepino. We look at how this original source led to the first monolingual dictionaries in both English and French, all within a year of each other.

WATCH: https://youtu.be/6pKn4RKUHng?si=MaYRwBmaOalGmKqQ

READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/1169/transcript

LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

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Have you ever seen people use "Academy Awards" as though it were singular?

Jim Norrena did and wondered whether it's always wrong. Hear what he found in today's Grammar Girl podcast!

WATCH: https://youtu.be/ZM9oS-hAtjg

READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/1166/transcript

LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

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Some people call these the same thing, and other people have different names for them — and it can depend on where you live!

That's just one of the cool things you'll learn this week from my chat with Joan Houston Hall, former editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English (often called DARE).

WATCH: https://youtu.be/F6dYztdHnG8?si=fbziIA7D-tXJBrwQ

READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/1165/transcript

LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

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(I call them both a spatula.)

Teens aren't destroying language. They're playing with it!

I talked with Sali Tagliamonte, a "language detective" who's studied teen talk for years. She busts myths about texting, explains why "like" dominates, why "very" is back, and shares her linguistic interviewing secrets: ask about childhood, their street, or their best friend.

Check out the podcast for more!

WATCH: https://youtu.be/MmMOtR-gV6k
READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/1163/transcript
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

#GrammarGirl #podcast

Are you ever confused about "awhile" versus "a while"? Here's how I remember the difference:

"A while" (two words) is a noun phrase, so test whether you can use a different noun:

✅ It's been A WHILE = It's been A YEAR

"Awhile" (one word) is an adverb, so test whether you can use a different adverb:

✅ Go play AWHILE = Go play QUIETLY

Check out the whole podcast:

WATCH: https://youtu.be/RHGqwPumPK4?si=ocW8JEOUg9abCX5w
READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/1160/transcript
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

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Did you know ChatGPT's earlier versions barely used em dashes at all? This week, I talked with Sean Goedecke, a software engineer who's looked at *why* AI models went em-dash wild.

The shift may have happened when companies started digitizing public domain books from years when em dash use peaked. Plus, we talked about tokens versus words, semicolons, and more.

Check it out!

WATCH: https://youtu.be/DXjxrXTEH5w
READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/1157/transcript
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

#GrammarGirl #podcast 

Listeners recently told me about an important "dozens" phrase: "the dozens," an African American game where two people trade increasingly inventive insults, usually in front of an audience.

The origin of "the dozens" is surprisingly hard to find. There's the slave auction theory, the twelve insults theory, and more. Check out the podcast!

WATCH: https://youtu.be/c2ObOfBGMkU
READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/1156/transcript
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

#GrammarGirl #podcast