Grammar Girl here. Today's show will cover the difference between the words woman and female. First we had Nancy Pelosi taking over as Speaker of the House, then Hillary Clinton running for president, and now we have Sarah Palin as the Republican vic...
Grammar Girl here. Today, guest writer Bonnie Trenga is going to tell us why were never gruntled, sheveled, or in whack, but why we are often disgruntled, disheveled, and out of whack. Bonnie says, Thanks to an interesting question from Glenn, well b...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic, whose was written by guest writer Bonnie Trenga. First, for those of you who didn't listen all the way to the end of last week's show and were outraged that I used the words irregardless and cogitate; it was a joke;...
Today's topic is who versus whom. I've received three requests from listeners to cover this topic. Here's Noreen: I just wondered if possibly in one of your episodes you could go through the use of who versus whom. I think that's a common misundersta...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is who versus that. Lesley called in with this question: My pet peeve is who versus that, as in You know Bob, he's the guy that sold me my car. It drives me nuts. Or am I mistaken and it's just become part of the new...
Today were going to get a bit negative by looking at the various times you can use the word nor. Nor with Neither Everybody knows that neither and nor are bosom buddies. They require balance. A nor usually follows a neither when they're used in the s...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is the language of disability and disease. When I was a technical writer, questions came up all the time about how to write about people with medical conditions. So today, guest-writer Bonnie Trenga will educate us. W...
Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is when plurals have no singular. A listener named Brent called in with this question: I have a question: how come pants, trousers, slacks, corduroys are all plurals even though there is only one of them? Guest writer...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is a versus an. A lot of people learned the rule that you put a before words that start with consonants and an before words that start with vowels, but it's actually a bit more complicated than that. For example, here...
Grammar girl here. For this show, Twilight from the Twilight and Thebes Show called in with a question about homophones: Now, here's Twilight: I'm confused with the word through, [as in] I looked through this pile of papers. It can't be threw because...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is What's with those people who talk weird? or regionalisms. Language is constantly changing, and a lot of people have asked me about how and why it happens. This isn't my area of expertise, but I've done a lot of rea...
Grammar Girl here. Today I'm going to talk about on accident versus by accident and how language changes. Some of the most difficult questions I get are from non-native English speakers who want to know why we use a particular preposition in a specif...
Grammar Girl here. I'm so glad to be back. Today's topic is wordiness. I've heard from a lot of you who have pet peeves about different wordy phrases, and it's a lot of fun to hear what gets under people's skin and why. Here's one example from Lara i...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is something I am very guilty of doing myself: overusing the words so and very. A listener named Taryn wrote in asking if it is acceptable to write that she is sooooooo happy that she is going to the prom (using so wi...
Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is the difference between the words loan and lend. Guest-writer Bonnie Trenga writes, Traditionally, lend is the verb and loan is the noun. I'll have a memory trick for you at the end. British Rules This rule is still...
