Notices by Mignon Fogarty (grammargirl@zirk.us)

Woohoo, we made it!

It's the spring equinox, which means in the northern hemisphere, day will now start being longer than night.

The word “equinox” comes from two Latin words: “aequi-” (meaning “equal”) and “noct-” (meaning “night”).

The spring equinox is also sometimes called the vernal equinox, and "vernal" also comes from Latin, this time “vēr,” meaning "spring."

Finally, an editing tip: "spring equinox" is not capitalized.

Do you have a favorite reference book?

One of my favorites is "The Best Punctuation Book, Period," by @junecasagrande, so I was thrilled when she joined me for today's Grammar Girl podcast! 😍

When I asked her what the most difficult punctuation mark is, her first answer surprised me — she said the period. No kidding!

Check out the whole discussion:

WATCH: https://youtu.be/hJ9uZ8LYUDc

READ: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/june/transcript

LISTEN: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-punctuation-book-period-with-june-casagrande/id173429229?i=1000700085287

#GrammarGirl #writing

Get your kids to read aloud. It makes a difference! 📚

I learned a lot about literacy in my interview with Kate Crist, but there's even more. Today, I learned that having kids read aloud helps them learn to read, ESPECIALLY when someone else reads the passage aloud for them first.

Here's our full interview about literacy: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-kids-cant-read-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-with-kate-crist/id173429229?i=1000698059752

And here's a blog post about Kate's new "reading aloud" program for middle schools and high schools: https://education4500.com/so/94PMlL8Eh

#literacy

You've probably been told you should write in active voice, but do you know why? And do you know how to identify it?

Active voice puts the person or thing doing something front and center — and that actually improves reading comprehension. If you want people to understand what you're writing (and who doesn't?), active voice helps!

A great trick for testing if a sentence is in passive voice is to see if you can add "by zombies" to the end ... 🧵

#Writing #Grammar

If you can add "by zombies," you probably have a passive voice sentence that you should rewrite with those "zombies" front and center.

Here's an example:

❌ The dogs were walked [by zombies].
✅ Zombies walked the dogs.

Here's a more real-life example:

❌ The report was sent Friday [by accounting].
✅ Accounting sent the report Friday.

(And I in no way mean to imply that accounting is full of zombies! 🤣)

Passive voice isn't *always* the wrong choice though.

It's good when you don't know who did something or want to deemphasize who did something:

The cookies were stolen last night. [We don't know who did it.'

The cells were launched into space this morning. [This wording suggests that the cells going is more important than who did the launching.]

Every time I go to Costco, I feel like a Flomax ambassador! People want to know all about it, and I’m telling them how comfortable it is and where to buy one. It’s not at all what I expect going out in the world, but it’s nice.

These are heads of butter lettuce that grew after I put grocery store lettuce in the dirt — the kind of lettuce you buy that still has a tiny root ball.

These had only a couple of leaves when I started, and I'm amazed how well they're doing! (Toes at bottom for scale.)

And I'm a lazy gardener. I don't fertilize or anything like that. We've just had some rain and some sun, and now they're living their best lives.

Also, I recognize @LoganFive and @lexfri among the list of runner-up poets. Great work!

If you see yourself on the list, let me know. I always like to pump up Mastodonians. :)

https://aceseditors.org/news/2025/announcing-the-winner-2025-national-grammar-day-poetry-contest

#GrammarDay

Wow, I'm blown away to learn that English isn't the first language of the poet who won the National #GrammarDay poetry contest. Congratulations, Salma Amanda Latifa!

As one of the judges, I can tell you the competition was fierce. If you want to roll around in some fabulous language, check out the winning poem and runners-up.

https://aceseditors.org/news/2025/announcing-the-winner-2025-national-grammar-day-poetry-contest

I try to be more of a person (rather than just a brand) here on Mastodon, but sometimes it's hard.

Like, the world is falling apart in eight different ways, but also, I need to say "Here is a video about language in the Oscars." It makes me feel crazy.

But anyway, here is a video about AI & language in the Oscars. The event is tonight, and someone on my team went to the work of making the video, and the guest gave his time, so I should share it. Also, it's really good.

https://youtu.be/FuvcIhaSKuU

A friend I tried to get on Signal a while ago just messaged me for help setting up the account.

Maybe things are finally breaking through.

KAFKAESQUE FIRINGS THAT HARM INDIVIDUALS

A phone call that says you're fired and you'll get info via email, but your email is turned off.

An email that says you're fired for poor performance when you haven't been there long enough to get a performance review.

HARM TO THE COMMUNITY

The VA hospital will be on an "operational pause."

https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/federal-employees-in-nevada-recount-their-sudden-firings-amid-trump-government-cutting-blitz

Thank you for the kind words, everyone. My mom is stable, but it's always scary having a loved one in the hospital.

Have you heard the one about em dashes being a hallmark of AI writing?

Don't believe it.

https://www.nightwater.email/em-dash-ai/

Do you love word games? Wordle? Connections? Crosswords?

If so, you'll love my new interview with Lex Friedman about his daily word site, Lex.games.

Lex creates nine different word games each day that are free to play, and we talked about how he keeps his games fresh, what players love and hate, and how he made his games accessible.

Listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/word-games-and-the-joy-of-playing-every-day-with-lex-friedman/id173429229?i=1000689594460

Read: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/lex/transcript

Watch: https://youtu.be/aMjIrs-WdVw

#WordGames #Podcasting #GrammarGirl

Well, the elderly relative I told you about who was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago because someone who was sick went to a holiday party just died.

It's not usually in my nature to share bad news, but I hope that by doing so, someone in the future will remember this post and stay home if they aren't feeling well.

It might feel loving to attend a family gathering — that "grandma would want to see you" — or someone might even pressure you to attend, but it is not the right choice.

If you see a post that makes you say, "Yes! That!" you can screenshot it and fax it to your senators, reps, and governor free using FaxZero — up to 5 faxes a day. They already have the numbers ready to go.

https://faxzero.com/fax_senate.php
https://faxzero.com/fax_congress.php
https://faxzero.com/fax_governor.php

#uspol

Ever wondered why we repeat words? For example, why do we say we're reading a "book-book" when we're reading a paper book?

In this week's #GrammarGirl episode, we’re looking at "reduplication" — why we say things like "salad-salad," "book-book," and "job-job" to emphasize the real, original, or most serious version of something.

Read: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/book-book/transcript

Listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/does-book-book-make-sense-fun-words-for-jigsaw-lovers/id173429229?i=1000686172492

Watch: https://youtu.be/0R0uifWhaSo

#GrammarGirl #Linguistics

@killyourfm San Simeon