Synopsis
You'll get fun and friendly doses of writing advice in three short chunks: a Quick and Dirty Tip, a meaty middle, and a final tidbit. Grammar Girl covers everything from punctuation and grammar to style and voice. QuickandDirtyTips.com
Episodes
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452 GG Why People Misuse Prepositions
22/01/2015 Duration: 18minFollow along on the website: Compliment Versus Complement http://j.mp/184vjlA Saving Our Prepositions http://j.mp/1yOHBdJ How 8 Fonts Got Their Names http://j.mp/1xZXLdg Try my iOS game, Grammar Pop http://j.mp/1H5YiSj
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451 GG Impossible Participals
15/01/2015 Duration: 13minFollow along on the website. Commas Before "Jr." http://j.mp/1BYaNOx Impossible Participles http://j.mp/1u2BXCZ Onomatopoeia http://j.mp/1AXQQZa Try my iOS game, Grammar Pop http://j.mp/1H5YiSj
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450 GG Is Sign Language Universal?
08/01/2015 Duration: 32minTons of fascinating tidbits about sign language from interpreter David Peach Follow along online: http://j.mp/1EQ3dsJ Find David online: http://twitter.com/dpeach http://learnsigns.com Sponsor: http://AudiblePodcast.com/GG Try my iOS game, Grammar Pop: http://j.mp/1H5YiSj
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449 GG Double Possessives
01/01/2015 Duration: 09minFollow along on the website: Transitive Versus Intransitive Verbs http://j.mp/1AUkNaZ Double Possessives http://j.mp/1x8OVy2 Try my iOS game, Grammar Pop http://j.mp/1H5YiSj
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448 GG How Our Brains Process Hyperbole
25/12/2014 Duration: 11minFollow along on the website: Champ Versus Chomp http://j.mp/1Cp9TsZ Hyperbole http://j.mp/1HkXt6c Adulting http://j.mp/1sNOALZ
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446 GG Why Don't People Say "Thou" Anymore
11/12/2014 Duration: 10minRead along on the website: What Does "Xmas" Really Mean? http://bit.ly/1xkSUsL Why Don't People Say "Thou" Anymore? http://bit.ly/1sv4joy Who Says "Kitty-Corner" and Who Says "Catty-Corner" http://bit.ly/1yTXXkt Grammar Girl books make a great gift! http://bit.ly/1xkT3fC
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445 GG Why Do People Say "Like" All the Time?
04/12/2014 Duration: 14minRead along on the website" Is "Boughten" a Word? http://j.mp/1tUEecu Did Valley Girls Invent "Like"? http://j.mp/12CCHlG Is German Chocolate Cake from Germany? http://j.mp/1w4pyyW Learn More About my December 12 Writing Webcast http://bitly.com/ggwebcast
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444 GG Between You and Me
27/11/2014 Duration: 11minRead along on the website: Lightning versus Lightening http://bit.ly/121kVb0 Between You and Me http://bit.ly/1AnHpif How Teddy Bears Got Their Name http://bit.ly/1AnH8fc Sign up for my December 12 corporate webcast. http://bitly.com/ggwebcast
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442 GG Make Me a Sandwich
13/11/2014 Duration: 12minBased on Versus Based off. Make Me a Sandwich: A Joke About Verbs. How to Pronounce Zero
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441 GG Mic or Mike? Simple or Simplistic? Uppercase and Lowercase
06/11/2014 Duration: 11minMic or Mike? Simple or Simplistic? Uppercase and Lowercase. Visit the website: http://bit.ly/1qEiW2m
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440 GG How to Plan a Novel
30/10/2014 Duration: 11minFor NaNoWriMo: How to format a character's thoughts, how to plan a novel, and the surprising newness of the novel format. Visit the website: http://bit.ly/13DNlJ8
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439 GG Texting, Coffins, and Death
23/10/2014 Duration: 12minToday, with Halloween in mind, I have a Quick and Dirty tip about the difference between a casket and a coffin; and an excerpt from David Crystal’s new book, Words in Time and Place, that goes through the many words we have for death and dying. Finally, I saw something shocking in a formal document a few weeks ago, so I have a tidbit about text messaging and language. Read the transcript: http://bit.ly/1sXJDC5
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438 GG Why Do People Say Punctuation Out Loud?
16/10/2014 Duration: 21min"Vaccine" Versus "Vaccination." Syelle Graves explains why people say things such as "We never leave any soldier behind. Period," and more generally, the relationship between speech and writing. A doozy of an eighteenth-century grammar rule: Don't use "who" to refer to children. Read the transcript: http://bit.ly/1Fc7Lrk
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437 GG What’s the difference between England, Great Britain, and the UK?
09/10/2014 Duration: 07minI know all you European listeners think it’s ridiculous that Americans don’t know the difference between England and Britain, but a British friend told me that many of you don’t know the difference between Britain and the United Kingdom, and that this would be a good topic for a podcast even though people should already know. Read the transcript: http://bit.ly/1D7rupV
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436 GG Why People Have Always Been Confused About Apostrophes
02/10/2014 Duration: 13minAn interview with Ammon Shea about the confusing history of apostrophes. Hanged Versus Hung. The story of the Victorian Great Exhibition, where Adolphe Sax displayed his invention: the saxophone. Read the transcript: http://bit.ly/Zsa0po
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435 GG We Might Could Harvest the Corn
25/09/2014 Duration: 13minYes, you can start a sentence with "because." Here's how to do it. What are helping verbs (also called auxiliary verbs), and why do people in some regions say things such as "might could" and "might should"? English writers didn't always use a dot over the letter "i." We'll talk about when and why they started. Visit the website: http://bit.ly/1phbhWH
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434 GG Ya Shank: The Made-Up Swear Words of 'The Maze Runner'
18/09/2014 Duration: 10minInsults, swear words, and world-building for young adults: In an interview with James Dashner, I got the inside scoop on the language of "The Maze Runner." Read the transcript: http://bit.ly/1poctaV
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433 GG Why People Mix Up the Pronouns "Me" and "I"
11/09/2014 Duration: 13minI can tell you which pronouns to use, but it takes a linguist to explain WHY people get confused. Here, Gretchen McCulloch reveals the fascinating reason that people struggle with sentences such as "Billy and me went to the store." Read the transcript: http://bit.ly/1vrTG2g
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431 GG Words That Aren't Words
28/08/2014 Duration: 12minIn this podcast, you get a Quick and Dirty Tip about where to put periods and commas relative to quotation marks, an excerpt from Ammon Shea's book "Bad English," and a tidbit about a 1921 poem called "Alphabet of Errors." Read the transcript: http://bit.ly/1v0iNsF
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430 GG The Plural of Money. This Is Your Brain on Writing. Egregious
21/08/2014 Duration: 13minIn this week's podcast, Grammar Girl discusses the plural of money, how to use "egregious," and talks with Ellen Hendriksen from The Savvy Psychologist podcast about the findings from an experiment done by German researchers in Germany who studied people’s brains while they were actively writing. Read the transcript: http://bit.ly/1AUhYp5