In addition to making me think about why we have so many problems in our country, the low literacy rate also gave me a new perspective on why YouTube is so popular as a source of information.
The American Dialect Society always has great word-of-the-year nominees. The Acronym/Initialism of the Year category seems especially strong this year with FOFI, AITA, IYKYK, LFG, and MOOP.
A follower asked me to share a piece on Substack, but I didn't think it was the best take.
Here's what I think is the clearest summary:
Substack says allowing self-proclaimed Nazis to use their service is a free speech issue, but they don't allow sexually explicit content published by sex workers.
Since they're willing to disallow some content but not Nazi content, it means they want to do business w/Nazis (and are full of shit about "free speech").
My husband had surgery this morning, and I am just so damn grateful he's alive.
It wasn't anything extreme, but it was under full anesthesia, and there are few feelings that hit me harder than seeing someone I love being wheeled away into surgery looking completely vulnerable.
I'm wiped out and signing off for the night, but I hope I passed some of my relief-joy on to all of you.
In this week's Grammar Girl podcast, we learn that "mansion" comes from the French word for "house." It was originally just a regular house, but our tendency to think of French things as fancy led to "mansion" meaning a big, expensive house.
I also investigate a house-related familect: Why would a mother ask a daughter if a boy at school "gave her any house"?
I just moved to a new instance, so here's a new #introduction
I'm the host of the Grammar Girl #podcast. You may have hit my website searching for something like "semicolons." I love #writing books, #teaching online courses, and I founded the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.
I've been thinking about the new Associated Press guidelines to avoid referring to #AI in ways that could imply humanness, sentience, or intent:
Don't say, "It WANTS you to enter more information," for example.
I've often used that kind of wording for computers in the past.
But more precise wording matters now because it's the first time we've widely had systems that could be mistaken for being human or having sentience, and it's important not to reinforce that idea.
@dangillmor A relative I consider to be especially informed didn't know that JJ is the same Jordan accused of ignoring sexual assault allegations from kids on his wrestling team. <mind blown>
It should be in every article. (As just one example of the many ways I agree with you that Big Journalism has failed us.)
This is a fascinating story about the foreign language effect, which finds that making decisions in a second language often leads to more logical choices.
For example, when given the trolly problem, more people will kill one person to save many when considering the scenario in a second language.
An interesting note on a NYT article about Hanoi literature.
AP style has long been to remove diacritical marks because its transmission technology couldn't handle it. But leaving these marks out in Vietnamese completely changed the meaning of some words.
Grammar Girl. Podcaster. New York Times bestselling author. Quick and Dirty Tips founder. Bad skier. California. she/her#AmWriting 7/4 Grammar Girl podcast#AmReading Intergalactic Exterminators Inc. (Bishop)