Notices by Mignon Fogarty (grammargirl@zirk.us)

Just got a mass email from our bank that essentially says, "If you give your username and password to an AI agent, you're on your own."

You've. Been. Warned. 🤣

Ginger mint lemonade at the parade. Highly re!

I've never been opposed to the word "hallucinating" for describing how AI makes mistakes ... until now.

I just talked to someone who thought AI hallucinations would be obvious because it would be obvious if you talked to a *person* who was hallucinating.

In other words, they equated "hallucination" with "sounds wacko" and accepted AI output as true because it sounded level headed.

1/2

The word "hallucination" isn't going away — it's a widely used industry term — but we need to explain it better for beginners:

"Hallucination" is just a fancy word for "confidently makes mistakes":

"Remember: AI hallucinates, and you need to confirm all facts" should be something like "Remember: AI confidently makes mistakes, and you need to confirm all facts" or "AI tells you things that are wrong in a way that sounds completely believable. Confirm all facts!"

What might it have sounded like if the Artemis II astronauts had run into real aliens?

There's a whole field of linguistics that thinks about alien language: xenolinguistics.

One place to start is with animal communication on Earth, like ants that lay chemical trails, and eels that send electrical messages.

Check out the podcast for more!

WATCH: https://youtu.be/BPzzFJtDU4c
READ: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/transcripts/grammar-girl/1178/
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

#GrammarGirl #podcast

Have you ever heard of a "semordnilap"?

It's a word that becomes a different word when reversed — like "stressed" becomes "desserts." Even better, "semordnilap" backwards is "palindromes."

This week, we look at autological and heterological words, and why "heterological" itself creates a logic trap. Check it out!

WATCH: https://youtu.be/AlzXZxTbyck
READ: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/transcripts/grammar-girl/1176/
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

#GrammarGirl #podcast

I just noticed the Kindle version of my book THE ULTIMATE WRITING GUIDE FOR STUDENTS is on sale for only $2.99!

I updated the book in 2023 too, so it's still quite fresh. Get it while it's cheap. :)

https://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Presents-Ultimate-Writing-Students-ebook/dp/B005EYXBFS?ref_=ast_author_mpb

I LOVE that John Carreyrou's piece claiming to have identified the creator of bitcoin hinges on linguist sleuthing like hyphen usage!

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/business/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto-identity-adam-back.html

"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."

WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu8ydXjUvPc
READ: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/transcripts/grammar-girl/1174/
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

#GrammarGirl #podcast

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."

Amazingly, it can be spelled with *any* vowel letter. The A in "about"? Schwa. The O in "gallon"? Schwa. The E in "taken"? Also schwa.

The schwa is also one reason English spelling is so unpredictable — because so many different letters can represent a single sound.

@janefriedman is reporting that the amount authors will receive in the Anthropic book settlement has gone up because the class-action lawyers have reduced their fees.

It was $3,000 per book (usually split 50/50 with your publisher), but now it's likely to be $3,700 per book (before split).

It's worth your time to see if your name is in the database.

Check here: https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup

Learn more: https://authorsguild.org/advocacy/artificial-intelligence/what-authors-need-to-know-about-the-anthropic-settlement/

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.

I had been putting it off and finally completed my forms last week.

Learn more at the Authors Guild: https://authorsguild.org/advocacy/artificial-intelligence/what-authors-need-to-know-about-the-anthropic-settlement/

Start the process: https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/

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: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/qdtarchive/is-ok-okay/

I'm behind on this, but the winners of the National Grammar Day Poetry Contest last week were all great. If you're looking for a quick, delightful diversion, check them out!

https://aceseditors.org/news/2026/2026-grammar-day-poetry-contest-winner-

This is an amazing find! A listener named Dan heard the podcast a few weeks ago when I talked about "snurfing" being an early name for snowboarding, and he found a video interview with THE INVENTOR OF THE SNURFER!

Sherman Popper has home video of his kids using the device he made to entertain them on Christmas Day in 1965.

https://vimeo.com/118057511

Calling all poets and word lovers! Don't miss your chance to enter the ACES #NationalGrammarDay poetry contest. The deadline is tomorrow (March 2, noon Eastern)!

The winner gets their poem featured on the Grammar Girl podcast, a signed copy of my book "The Grammar Daily," and a one-year ACES membership.

Enter today or tag one of your poetry-loving friends!

https://aceseditors.org/awards/aces-national-grammar-day-poetry-contest

Have you ever wondered why some names just feel "right" while others don't? There's actual science behind it called "sound symbolism."

We cover Plato's "Cratylus," Darwin's theories, and modern research showing people remember product names better when sounds match object size — like "Tonka" for trucks vs. "mini" for little things.

Check it out!

WATCH: https://youtu.be/8TlPTP0ad7g
READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/1162/transcript
LISTEN: https://pod.link/173429229

#GrammarGirl #podcast

Pat feeds the crows on our morning walks, so for Christmas I got him a book about crows, and he's been sharing the most amazing stories as he reads it!

It turns out crows kept as pets can learn to talk, and there was once a crow in Montana, that escaped from its home and ended up on a college campus, where it would whistle and call out to dogs “Here doggy, here doggy.”

It eventually gathered a pack of about six confused dogs that it would incite to chase students between classes. 1/x

I didn't think this story could be real, but I actually found a reference, and apparently it's a well-known story in Missoula.

https://archive.umt.edu/montanan/w05/letters.shtml

And it's not even the only time something like this has happened!

I found an even better documented story of a crow that hung out for a while at an Oregon elementary school, also ordering around dogs.

https://apnews.com/article/oregon-education-birds-grants-pass-9d5c3bba3853449eaafe7dc268f2fa8f

"The Oregonian" actually made a 12-part documentary about "Cosmo the Talking Crow," and it's on YouTube. It's about an hour long in total. (I haven't watched it yet.) 3/x

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvV27ob7jFg