500 episodes listed below
Smart grammar with a word-lover’s curiosity.
Grammar Girl is a language-learning show built around practical usage questions, etymology, pronunciation, and the odd pleasures of wordplay. Mignon Fogarty and contributors move from everyday writing fixes to library lore, dictionary history, AI worries, and crossword culture.
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Grammar Girl is an accessible language show with a strong practical streak and a persistent sense of curiosity. It explains English usage, but it rarely stays inside the boundaries of a style guide. The show can answer a workplace question about why “please contact myself” sounds wrong, then pivot into the bigger idea of reflexive pronouns. It can follow denim back to Nîmes, sort false place-name stories from real ones, and make a Panama hat or guinea pig feel like evidence in a linguistic case file. Wordplay is part of the texture. Samordnilaps, palindromes, autological words, and feghoots get treated with both delight and structure, so the joke comes with a working definition. Mignon Fogarty’s presence gives the episodes a clear editorial center. Contributors broaden the range with segments on etymology, pronunciation, and the mental dictionary. Interview episodes stretch into bookish territory. John Overholt explains rare-book curating, hand washing, and why cotton gloves are not the default answer. Kori Stamper brings dictionary color terms into view through the work of defining shades. Suzanne Bowness discusses freelance writing in the age of AI, including the practical limits of tools that can invent bad contact data. Natan Last connects crossword puzzles to World War II, Pearl Harbor, and the New York Times’ changing attitude toward puzzles. The show is measured, friendly, and mildly nerdy. It assumes listeners can enjoy detail if the path is clearly marked. It is not only for grammar emergencies. It is for people who like seeing how ordinary speech carries history, habit, craft, and social meaning.
Made for: For writers, language learners, crossword fans, and anyone who enjoys knowing why a word, phrase, or pronunciation works the way it does. It suits listeners who like clear explanations with bookish side paths.
What sets it apart: Grammar Girl blends usage advice with etymology, linguistics, publishing, and interviews, so the show feels broader than a tips feed. Its strength is making specialist language knowledge sound conversational without sanding off the interesting detail.
Five-time winner of Best Education Podcast in the Podcast Awards. Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing and feed your love of the English language. Whether English is your first language or your second language, these grammar, punctuation, style, and business tips will make you a better and more successful writer. Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Mignon Fogarty makes the hidden work behind words visible through precise, approachable conversations with people who study, preserve, and use them.
Mignon Fogarty treats language as something made by people, institutions, and changing habits. Her interviews move beyond usage advice into the machinery behind words: dictionary editors wrestle with color definitions and trace early lexicography, while conversations about…
A dictionary's unnamed color chips become your excuse to distrust every confident claim about gray.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear look at curatorial work, with the white-gloves myth put in its place.
Grammar Girl's bonus conversation with Houghton Library Curator John Overholt offers a grounded look at the care of rare material, from the Samuel Johnson Collection to other pre-1800 holdings in his department.
A crisp crossword history that links early puzzle-making to wartime newspaper culture.
That episode gives crossword history a tidy arc, starting with a 1913 New York World idea and following the puzzle into newspaper culture as it grew from a hand-worked novelty into something wider.
A word-history conversation that follows a dictionary from France and London to Shakespeare's classroom and the Mayflower.
Peter Sokolowski turns the origin of the dictionary into a story about people, places, and books, moving from France and London in the 1500s to Shakespeare's classroom and the Mayflower.
A practical AI and freelancing conversation that stays grounded in the work itself.
Suzanne, author of The Feisty Freelancer and a longtime freelancer who teaches writing and freelancing at Humber College in Toronto, leads a clear-eyed discussion of the stubborn questions that come with using AI at work.
A dictionary tour that makes color names feel stranger, and more precise, than they look.
Grammar Girl's conversation with Kori Stamper on True Color opens a lively path into the quest to define color terms, moving through Webster's second, color plates, chips, and labeled shades.
John McWhorter and co-hosts trace English etymology, grammar shifts, and idiom origins episode by episode.
Héctor and Beto dissect Mexican grammar, slang, and news in native-speed Spanish conversations.
This episode features linguist Ben Zimmer discussing how he discovered older origins of the word 'hella' through antedating research, revealing its surprising history beyond its Bay Area associations.
Grammar Girl hosts Suzanne Bowness, author of 'The Feisty Freelancer', to discuss AI's impact on freelance writing.
Color gets slippery fast.
This episode features an interview with Keith Houston about the history of book technology, from ancient clay tablets to the Gutenberg press.
This bonus interview with linguist Danny Bate explores the historical development of the alphabet, focusing on how letters after T were added later and discussing his book 'Why Q Needs You'.
This episode features an interview with illustrator Kay Woodman-Maynard about her graphic novel adaptation of Tuck Everlasting, discussing her creative process and the intersection of words and images.
John Overholt is introduced as Curator at Houghton Library at Harvard.
This episode explores words that do what they say, including the concept of samordnilap, and addresses common confusion about using 'myself' correctly.
This episode features an interview with Suzanne Bowness, author of 'The Feisty Freelancer', discussing how freelancers can adapt to AI tools and maintain client relationships in a changing industry.
This episode explores how different pronunciations of 'Iran' reflect social and political identities, with a linguist explaining the patterns behind accent variations.
Grammar Girl host Mignon Fogarty interviews former Merriam-Webster editor Kori Stamper about the more than 3,000 color names in Webster’s Third.
Mignon Fogarty opens a bonus conversation with Natan Last.
Grammar Girl takes a break from its regular interview run for a bonus conversation with Peter Sokolowski of Merriam-Webster.
This episode features an interview with linguist Ben Zimmer discussing the process of antedating words, using the example of 'scalawag' to explore earlier usages than those recorded in dictionaries.