Mignon Fogarty

Grammar Girl here.

I'm Mignon Fogarty.

This week, we'll talk about Zipf's Law, a pattern that shapes how often you use your most common words, and why SETI researchers think it could help identify alien communication.

But first, Grammarpalooza the Game Show to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the podcast is in just two days, September 24th.

If you want to call with your familect story a word or phrase you use with just your family, or maybe a friendilect you use with just your friends, You can leave a message on the voicemail line or use your computer or phone to record it on SpeakPipe, and both of those are in the show notes.

Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, thanks to Nat Hoops, Morgan Christensen, Rebecca Sebastian, Stephen Schepanski, Holly Hutchings, Dan Feierabend, and Maram El-Nagib, who has ridden all 28 subway lines in New York City.

And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.

That's all.

Grammar Girl here.

I'm Mignon Fogarty.

And today I am here with Roger Cruz.

He is the associate dean at the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Memphis and a frequent contributor to psychology today with language pieces, which is how I discovered him.

Grammar Girl here.

I'm Mignon Fogarty.

And today I am here with Daniel Heumann and Chris Ryder from Intelligent Editing.

Guys, welcome to the Grammar Girl podcast.

Grammar Girl here.

I'm Mignon Fogarty.

Today, in honor of the upcoming Labor Day holiday in the United States, we'll talk about why some of our last names sound like jobs.

But first, before we get into today's episode, this year marks 20 years of Grammar Girl.

The instructions are in the show notes, and we'd love to hear it.

Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, thanks to Nat Hoops, Morgan Christensen, Rebecca Sebastian, Maram El-Nagib, Stephen Schepansky, Holly Hutchings, and Dan Feierabend, who is really enjoying the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks.

And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.

And don't forget to register for the September 24th game show.

[upbeat music] Grammar Girl here.

I'm Mignon Fogarty.

This week, we'll talk about why we say something confusing is Greek to us, and where that phrase actually comes from.

This first segment is by Valerie Fridland.

Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast.

Thanks to Morgan Christensen, Rebecca Sebastian, Maram Elnagib, Steven Schapansky, Holly Hutchings, Dan Feierabend, and Nat Hoopes, who went to Sevilla this summer and was inspired to buy a classical guitar.

And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.

That's all.