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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 1d

If you love dictionaries, you'll love my chat this week with Stefan Fatsis about his new book "Unabridged."

He spent years at Merriam-Webster learning how everything works, even writing definitions that made it into the dictionary.

We talked about all kinds of […]

[Original post on zirk.us]

A promotional image for the Grammar Girl podcast featuring Mignon Fogarty and Stefan Fatsis. Mignon Fogarty, a white woman with long brown hair, is smiling on the left. Stefan Fatsis, a white man with gray hair and glasses, is resting his chin on his hand on the right. Between them is a graphic of the cover of his book, "Unabridged: The Story of the Dictionary and How It Came to Be." The background is bright orange, and the title in large text reads: "INTERVIEW The fight for the modern dictionary." The Grammar Girl and QDT logos are also visible.

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 3d

@topofmyvoice Quest 3.

Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 3d

I'm a big dork and have a VR headset, and the only thing I use it for is virtual boxing, but I have to say ... it feels SO GOOD to throw fake punches for 40 minutes when you've had a bad day. Totally worth it just for that. I beat that air to a pulp!

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 4d

I love Old English compounds. From today's @OEWordhord

sand-land, n.n: the sea-shore.
(SAWND-LAWND / ˈsand-ˌland)

A woman sitting on large gray rocks at a sandy beach on a sunny day. She is smiling at the camera, wearing a light gray and navy windbreaker, and holding a small piece of driftwood. Behind her, gentle waves roll onto the shore under a clear blue sky, with distant cliffs and coastline visible in the background. It was her birthday, and there was no place she'd rather be.

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 4d

I loved this Podglomerate interview with @lexfri. Lots of great insider stories if you're interested in the business side of podcasting.

https://listen.podglomerate.com/show/podcast-perspectives/podcast-veteran-lex-friedman-on-the-podcast-industrys-evolution/

Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 5d

Jess Zafarris explains how the name Pakistan was created by Muslim students at Cambridge in the 1930s who combined the names of the regions that ended up forming the country.

Listen to the whole interview →https://pod.link/173429229

Get the book, "Useless […]

[Original post on zirk.us]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 6d

@taoish No reason I'm aware of. The only problem could be if the publisher didn't register the copyright (as far as I know).

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 6d

ICYMI, the official database of books included in the Anthropic class-action copyright settlement is now live: https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/

You can now file claims.

Submit a Claim

secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 6d

You'll probably be as surprised as I was to learn that "outrage" doesn't actually come from "out" + "rage." Jess Zafarris explains what the heck is going on!

If you find this as fascinating as I do, listen to the whole interview and get her new book, "Useless […]

[Original post on zirk.us]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 7d

Dazzle your friends this weekend with fabulous tidbits from Jess Zafarris!

This week, we ran through some of our favorite stories from her new book, "Useless Etymology."

— “Debunk” comes from Buncombe County in North Carolina, where a politician gave a famously […]

[Original post on zirk.us]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 7d

A cautionary tale about the cost of badly written emails:

I thought my dad was coming to visit next week, but he showed up yesterday! 😱

Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 7d

@HollyGoDarkly How fun! I must have "double" checked the spelling on those at least four time before posting. :)

Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 15d

I'm hearing the judge just approved the Anthropic copyright settlement, which means the $1.5 billion payout is likely back on.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/25/judge-anthropic-case-preliminary-ok-to-1point5b-settlement-with-authors.html

A detail from Publishers […]

[Original post on zirk.us]

As laid out in the new filing by the attorneys, and explained in a note to members of the Association of American Publishers by CEO Maria Pallante, the revised settlement proposes “default (non-mandatory) recovery allocations for claimants of trade and university press books, with authors and publishers splitting the per-work award equally in half (with co-authors and co-publishers splitting the author or publisher share of the award equally amongst themselves), with an option to vary from those divisions based on a particular contract.”

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 15d

This week, I talk with illustrator and cartoonist K. Woodman Maynard about her new graphic novel adaptation of "Tuck Everlasting."

She shares how she adapted this beloved book, including how she used visual elements like speech bubbles, color, and panel frames to […]

[Original post on zirk.us]

A promotional image for a Grammar Girl interview titled "Adapting a classic: from words to watercolors." It shows a smiling Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) on the left and K. Woodman-Maynard, the graphic novelist, on the right. Between them is an image of the book cover for "Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting: The Graphic Novel" illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard. The background features watercolor illustrations of a house and fields.

Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 29d

Highlights:

— How materials including bamboo, papyrus, and parchment shaped what a “book” could be.

— Why China invented movable type, but Gutenberg was the one to give it wings.

— How parchment becomes something we write on and why that process led to books being rectangular.

— The […]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Sep 4

Top story in the Reno Gazette-Journal this morning.

I'm glad I'm in California now, but I worry for my friends and family in NV. It's all so stupid.

https://www.rgj.com/story/news/health/2025/09/04/cvs-walgreens-block-covid-vaccine-appointments-in-nevada/85962833007/

News article screenshot with the headline: "Access to COVID vaccine limited in Nevada. New version delayed." Below the headline is a photo of three syringes labeled with COVID-19 vaccine information, including "COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA," "Spikevax," and "Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine." The caption text beneath the photo reads: "Nevada pharmacy regulations say pharmacists can't dispense vaccines not recommended by federal panel. Panel's guidance delayed amid federal upheaval." At the bottom, bold text says "READ MORE."

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Sep 3

Have you heard the Vonnegut quote about not using semicolons? That using one does nothing but show you've been to college?

That statement has always bugged me, so I looked into it and found a lot more in the article where it appears.

For example, he used a […]

[Original post on zirk.us]

Graphic with a bright blue starburst background. In the center, two overlapping rounded rectangles display the main text: the top white rectangle says "Did He" in dark green, and the bottom gold rectangle says "Mean It?" in bold dark green. Below, smaller white text reads: "Kurt Vonnegut said to never use a semicolon, but did he actually mean it?"

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Aug 28

— And (with a special shout out to the @Oz9Podcast podcast), "bichon frisé" is descriptive in French, being a slight modification of the words for "curly-haird lapdog." And these dogs took an interesting route from being favored by the aristocracy to being circus dogs!

I have the story of 13 […]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Aug 27

There's still an upcoming ACIP meeting about it, but I don't know yet how that could change things.

Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Aug 27

I'm just so angry.

I knew our institutions are failing us, but I truly didn't know it is THIS bad.

They literally don't know what is happening, even though it is in major papers.

<deep breaths> So I guess that's why it is so important that we call and write.

I thought we did it to ENCOURAGE […]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Aug 27

Yet, I felt like some kind of conspiracy theorist telling my elected official that I had done my own research, and he was giving me incorrect information and should check into it.

I'm just sitting here aghast. How. Could. They. Not. Know?

I mostly called in the first place because I was hoping […]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Aug 27

I told him that I had been doing some reading since I called, and they haven't even had the federal meeting yet to determine whether the fall vaccine would be approved, and that likely to happen in mid-September, and nobody knows if it will be approved or when it will arrive.

And he said "Well […]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Aug 27

My federal rep actually got back to me within a few hours with a "finder" web page that showed me a few places that might still have them. The closest was 150 miles away. (I haven't called yet to confirm. I'm still considering whether I want to drive that far.)

But just now, my state rep's […]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Aug 27

I'm going to go on a rant here, so please bear with me ...

Yesterday, I tried to got a COVID shot and couldn't. I called four pharmacies and the Health Department and nobody has it.

I knew it's already a "supplies are limited" situation in the U.S., so I wasn't surprised, but I was upset, so I […]

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Mignon Fogarty @grammargirl.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · Aug 22

A couple of days ago I saw something go by my feed along the lines that the best definition of using a chatbot is trying to get the LLM to write what you already know the answer should be.

I didn't save it, but now I want it and can't find it.

Does that ring any bells for anyone? Can you point […]

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