Your brain retrieves words in just 200 milliseconds — as fast as a blink! When you hear the word "dog," you instantly process doggy smells, sounds, sensations, memories, and emotions.

New #WriterBeware blog post: An update on the Anthropic copyright settlement, now that the deadline for filing claims has passed, including how many claims there've been and an objection to the settlement that could change everything if approved writerbeware.blog/2026/04/10/a...

Omg. Spandex is an anagram for expands.

One of the clues to finding the man behind bitcoin: he used two spaces after a period! Linguistic sleuthing FTW.

"Odious" has nothing to do with smell, and "noisome" has nothing to do with noise. Are you surprised? I have more commonly confused "smell" words in today's podcast, including "odorous," "malodorous," and "odoriferous." Listen: is.gd/UtrMCQ

Sometimes when I'm on Canva making images, I feel like I should apologize to the designers who will eventually shudder when they see what I've made. Things got out of hand, and I didn't respect the grid. I'm sorry.

Alanis Morissette is the oldest citation for FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS?! From the song Head Over Feet (1995). Wow. #AmResearching

Did you know the dictionary has more than 3,000 color names? This week, @korystamper.bsky.social helps us look at the wonderfully obsessive world of color definitions, including names like "begonia" and "fiesta." And yes — "gray" and "grey" may actually be different colors. 🎧 APPLE: is.gd/5RLjLb

Confused by "principal" vs. "principle"? ✏️ PrinciPAL = important person or main thing (the principal is your "pal"). ✏️ PrinciPLE = rule or belief. Check out this week's podcast for more memory tricks! APPLE: is.gd/20NeYx YOUTUBE: youtu.be/oULr_H44QKo

The fabric in your jeans is named after a city in France! "Denim" comes from "serge de Nîmes" (sturdy fabric from Nîmes). It's a toponym—a word from a place name. Learn about "jeans" itself, "sherry," "cantaloupe" and more in this week's episode! Listen: pod.link/grammargirl

Reading this article just aged me twenty years. (I learned to type on a typewriter in eighth grade.)

This is a verified GoFundMe for librarian Luanne James from the Rutherford County Library Alliance. gofund.me/f7704eb98 Read what happened to this hero: www.newschannel5.com/news/rutherf...

Happy book birthday to Kory Stamper's TRUE COLOR! (I got to talk to her a couple of weeks ago about this fabulous, fascinating book, and you can hear that conversation Thursday on the Grammar Girl podcast.)

Our No Kings event isn't until later this afternoon, so I got to go see some cute goats this morning!

Social movement scholar here to comment on No King again. a 🧵: These protests are important b/c: 1.) as sustained image events, protests offer evidence of continued disapproval of the direction the country is going and disavowal of the country's leadership.

This was a fun interview. (Spite!) Plus, I got some great recommendations of books to read between @tkingfisher.com novels.

Bad news obviously but Orwell's Twilight does have way too many talking animals boning at dusk so it's not a huge loss.

Do you love crosswords? Then you'll love this week's show w/Natan Last, author of "Across the Universe." So many surprises! 📰 Puzzles were more aligned with flappers than brainiacs. 📰 Some libraries even banned them! This episode is packed with word-nerd gold. 🎧️

📣 New bonus episode of the @grammargirl.bsky.social - with @natanlast.bsky.social talking about the crossword puzzle's role in World War II and the fight against Nazism. shows.acast.com/69c1476c007c...

Your brain retrieves words in just 200 milliseconds — as fast as a blink! When you hear the word "dog," you instantly process doggy smells, sounds, sensations, memories, and emotions. Learn more about the amazing way your brain processes words in this week's podcast: pod.link/grammargirl

In her newsletter this morning, @janefriedman.com reported that the per-book payout in the Anthropic book settlement will likely be $3,700 per book. The deadline to file your claim is March 30, and you can check if your name is in the database here: secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup 🧵

Same here. I could not have kept Grammar Girl running without Pat doing 80%+ of the work to keep our household afloat — especially in the first 5 years. Sometimes he even pulled me away from the computer so I would just eat or move. I fully believe it wouldn't have been possible without help.

• Middle-aged white guy talk (funny) • Mundane conversations, but in the language you're trying to learn • Daily news, but in the language you're trying to learn • Science! • Grammar Girl • Friends playing games together • It's just a guy walking around recording bird song and you should listen

The most common vowel sound in English isn't A, E, I, O, U or even Y. It's the schwa, and it sounds more like "uh." The schwa is written as an upside-down "e," and you hear it at the end of "sofa" and in the middle of "memory." Read more: www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/wha...

I saw a sign much like this on my way to Costco today, thought about the trucking industry, and bought a bunch of extra fruit and vegetables to freeze and dehydrate. 😬

Have you ever groaned at an elaborate pun? It might have been a *feghoot*! The term comes from a 1956 sci-fi series whose adventures always ended in cringey puns. This episode is guaranteed to make you laugh (or at least groan)! Listen: pod.link/grammargirl

A yam mascot. You might even say a "yamscot."

Super useful! I bookmarked it.

Heads-up for published authors: The deadline to join the Anthropic class-action copyright settlement is March 30. If you have published a book, you may be eligible to receive ~$1,500 per book, so it’s worth your time to check it out. Learn more: authorsguild.org/advocacy/art...

On this day (March 23) the word "OK" first appeared in the Boston Morning Post in 1839, and author Allan Metcalf, who wrote a whole book about "OK," promoted today at "OK Day." It all started as a funny misspelling: "oll korrekt" (think of it as 19th-century text speak). Read more: is.gd/BlUp5O

<blows dust off blog> Welp, I'm back. korystamper.com/2026/03/19/h...

In today's show, @petersokolowski.bsky.social traces the word "dictionary" back to a 16th-century Latin work by a monk named Calepino. We look at how this original source led to the first monolingual dictionaries in both English and French, all within a year of each other. 🎧 pod.link/173429229

I read an advance review copy of TRUE COLOR, and it's great! And Kory is going to be on the podcast to talk about color words in a couple of weeks (like who thought "blackish white" was a good idea for a definition?). Which is to say ... read the excerpt! You'll be glad you did.

"I like these ones." Does that sentence make you cringe? You're not alone. A lot of people feel like "these ones" and "those ones" are wrong — that you should just say "these" or "those" by themselves. But the truth is more complicated. Read more: www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/the...

Learn some Irish speaking styles for St. Patrick's Day! For example, an Irish person is less likely to answer "yes" or "no." Instead, they'll answer with something like this: ☘️ Can you swim? I can! ☘️ Do you like tomato juice? I don’t. ☘️ Are you coming? I amn’t. The article explains why.

Leprechaun lore may have been inspired by Roman priests running naked through the streets! But leprechauns also originally wore red & lived underwater too. From shoemaking to small bodies, their origin story is wild! Listen: pod.link/grammargirl

Our primary dictionary, @merriam-webster.com, shows that it's four-leaf clover for the traditional good luck charm. Note that four and leaf are hyphenated as a compound modifier for clover, and it's a singular leaf not leafed.

Traditional Irish expression, said of a man with a very thin face: He could kiss a goat between the horns

Do you mess up scheduling across time zones? Try Arizona. It doesn't observe DST, so its offset changes by season. Even worse: during British Summer Time, Greenwich's time differs from GMT! This week: caps, avoiding time redundancies, formatting "a.m."/"p.m." & more. 🎧 pod.link/173429229

Straight: unbent Strait: narrow, tight That’s why we have straitjacket (a confining jacket), straitlaced (tightly laced), Strait of Hormuz (a narrow passage).

Today, @jesszafarris.com helps us look at the surprising origins of words: * Why "miniature" originally referred to a red color and not a size. * Why a "factoid" wasn't originally a fact. * How "hello" only became a common greeting because of the telephone. LISTEN: pod.link/173429229

Oh, and look, here's that class action suit! That anyone with half a brain would have seen coming! From, like, a million miles away! Just because you work in tech doesn't mean you're smart.

Thanks, English. STRAIT and STRAIGHT are *not* etymologically related. STRAIT is from French for "tight, narrow," ultimately from a form of Latin STRINGERE (to bind, draw tight). Think STRICT, CONSTRICT. STRAIGHT is from a form of Old English STRECCAN (stretch). It's literally "stretched."

Have you ever seen people use "Academy Awards" as though it were singular? Jim Norrena did and wondered whether it's always wrong. Hear what he found in today's Grammar Girl podcast! 🎧 APPLE: tinyurl.com/242349p4 🎧 SPOTIFY: tinyurl.com/2cgahekq

im at the eye doctors. there is a doctor here who has a whole ass star trek themed setup

I read "biped" as verb. I think that's my sign to end my work day.

An amazing book about this is "Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker." It's presumably about hacking, but it's mostly about social engineering.

I just learned what I'm sure is going to be a life-changing new Chrome keyboard command: Shift-Command-A Search all tabs.

Should you write "don't" or "do not"? It depends. Contractions are the default in everyday writing such as emails, dialogue, and conversational prose. But they're almost always absent in scholarly papers, legal writing, formal business documents, and (surprisingly) newspaper journalism.

just heard a guy on youtube say "in the grand scream of things"