Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Hosted ByMignon Fogarty

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.


All Episodes

Do You Call In, Out, or Off Sick? How Kids Learn Language. Hexaboobiated.

Tips for Learning a New Language: The Fluent Show

Kerstin Cable, host of “The Fluent Show” shares her tips and enthusiasm for learning new languages.

Why ‘Tiny’ Sounds Smaller Than ‘Huge.’ Nixing the Horrid ‘Of.’ Kokopelli.

The sounds of certain words make us think of things that are big or small, round or spiky, and the tendency is nearly universal. For example, people can often pick words that refer to something big or small even in languages they don’t speak. Here’s why.

‘Strollout,’ ‘Insurrection,’ ‘Yassify,’ and Other Words of the Year for 2021

“Strollout,” “Insurrection,” “Yassify,” and Other Words of the Year for 2021

Cardsharp. The Old-New Singular ‘They.’ Grignug.

Was that uncle who wiped the floor with you in a card game a cardsharp or a card shark? Also, we look at what it is about using “they” as a singular pronoun that makes it sometimes stand out and sometimes get overlooked.

Questions, Questions, So Many Questions!

I have a big metaphorical pile of questions from listeners in which the answers are too short to be a whole podcast segment, so today, I’m going to string them together and do a bunch of quick hits. We’ll talk about color idioms, formatting bullet points

Is “Milk and Cookies” One Thing or Two? A New Language Term: The Santaback. Shoedabakers.

Is “Milk and Cookies” One Thing or Two? A New Language Term: The Santaback. Shoedabakers.

How Lori Rader-Day Wrote a Historical Novel About War Evacuees in Agatha Christie’s Vacation Home

Interview: Accomplished mystery writer Lori Rader-Day was drawn to the story of children who were evacuated to Agatha Christie’s vacation home during WWII, but having never written a historical novel before, she faced challenges.

Pretending to Be British. How to Use Ellipses. Spiders.

When an American character unintentionally uses British words or phrases, that’s an anatopism. Also, using ellipses can be tricky

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