Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is Nothing Ages Writing Faster Than Slang. Guest writer Sal Glynn writes Slang is made of informal words and phrases that originate in speech, and often includes substitutions for formal words, like ride or wheels for...
Grammar Girl here. Today I'm going to play two listener comments that will lead us to a discussion of wordiness and idioms. Wordiness First, here's Tod in Canada from the todbits.com website: Can you help me correct people? Everyone that I know seems...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is whether you can use the word woman as an adjective. Ann in Baltimore, Maryland, asked why people were referring to Nancy Pelosi as the woman Speaker of the House instead of the female speaker of the house, and Amy...
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...