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The Dictionary of Difficult Words

You may remember my chat with Jane Solomon about a year ago when we talked about how Dictionary.com had started defining emoji. Well, she’s back today to talk about her new children’s book, The Dictionary of Difficult Words. 

We talked about the long history of "difficult word" dictionaries in the English language, how she chose the particular difficult words in her book, which letters have the best words, and the specific constraints that dictionary writers often encounter (such as  limited acceptable "defining vocabularies") and the constraints she put upon herself.

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above or by finding the podcast on any podcasting app, but if you prefer to read it, we also have a complete (rough) transcript.

Image courtesy of Jane Solomon.

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Do You Capitalize 'God'?

Christians, Jews, and Muslims will all be celebrating religious holidays in the coming weeks, so it seems like a good time to answer questions about religious words.

Do You Capitalize the Word ‘God’?

One of the most common questions people ask about religious words is whether to capitalize the word “god.” The name or title of any specific deity is capitalized just like any other name, so when “God” is used to refer to “the one God” (in other words, in any monotheistic religion), it is capitalized. 

For example, you’d capitalize “God” in these sentences:

Some Christians give thanks to God before every meal.

Dear God, please let my team win tonight.

When referring to gods in general, though, or when using the word "god" descriptively, keep it lowercase:

The Romans believed a god named Jupiter ruled the heavens.

The Greek gods were always causing trouble for humans.

The same rule holds true for Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, and the names of gods in other religions. They’re capitalized.

Why Do Jewish People Write ‘G-d’?

When ‘God’ is a name, it is capitalized.

An interesting side note about the names of gods is that it’s Jewish tradition to avoid writing the name of God because doing so creates a chance that the name could be treated disrespectfully. For this reason, in Jewish documents, you may see the name written as “G-d.” 

That’s a simplistic explanation of Jewish religious philosophy and rules—it’s not the whole story—but at least now if you see “G-d,” you’ll have an inkling of an idea of why it’s written that way. You can read more about the Jewish tradition here and here.

Do You Capitalize ‘Godly’?

Hillary M. from Las Vegas wanted to know if she should capitalize the word like “godly” and “godsend.”

"Godly" and other words that start with "god" are almost always lowercase. Occasionally, religious publications choose to capitalize words that start with "god," but a wide variety of style guides I...

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BONUS: LeVar Burton Reads is back!

Today’s episode of Grammar Girl is about something special. I’m sharing a preview of a Stitcher Original Podcast called LeVar Burton Reads, hosted by none other than legendary storyteller LeVar Burton.

If you love words and language, there’s a good chance you love a good story. And this show is full of amazing stories you won’t want to miss.

Every week on LeVar Burton Reads, you’ll be engrossed in a piece of beautiful short fiction handpicked by LeVar himself. You’ll hear fantasy and sci-fi, comedy and westerns, and so much more. The featured stories  come from legendary authors like Octavia Butler, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ray Bradbury.

Plus, LeVar’s narration is unmatched, and every episode features beautifully immersive soundscapes that completely engross you in the world of the story.

Season 4 just premiered with a full slate of brand-new stories. And you can jump into any episode from Seasons 1, 2, and 3. Just search LeVar Burton Reads in your podcast app and make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. But first, click the player above to listen to a preview. 

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How You Can Benefit Year-Round from NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month is in November, and many people know about the event affectionately known as NaNoWriMo, but fewer people know about the year-round events the organization also sponsors, including Camp NaNoWriMo—a virtual writing camp where you share a "cabin" with a group of other writers who all support each other's writing goals. Camp NaNoWriMo runs in April and July, and it's for people who want to write anything, not just a novel.

In this interview, I talked with Grant Faulkner, the executive director of National Novel Writing Month, about how the program got started, the program's other initiatives, and what advice he has for aspiring novelists given that he's watched hundreds of thousands of them participate, struggle, and succeed in his programs.

Click the player above to hear the interview, or if you'd prefer to read, we also created a rough transcript.

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How a Semicolon Brought Two Writers Together

Jennifer Miller frequently writes for the "New York Times" style section and has also written novels, but for "Mr. Nice Guy," she teamed up with her husband, Jason Fiefer, who is the editor-in-chief of "Entrepreneur Magazine." The novel draws on both authors' extensive experience in the magazine world and has been described as “The Devil Wears Prada” meets “Sex in the City.”

In this interview, we talked about how the semicolon (of all things!) brought these two together, why they both love and overuse the colon, what it's like to work as a writing team, which parts of the novel are based on real excesses in the magazine industry and the authors' own writing travails, and more. 

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the player or by finding the podcast on any podcasting app, but if you prefer to read it, we also have a complete (rough) transcript.

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Why We Have Both 'Color' and 'Colour'

Have you ever wondered why the British spell “color” with a “u” and Americans don’t? Or why the British spell “theater” with an “re” at the end and Americans spell it with an “er” at the end? We all know that these spelling differences exist, but not everyone knows why they exist. Today, we’re going to find out!

It turns out that Noah Webster of Webster’s dictionary fame is behind many, but not all, of the spelling differences between British and American English, and his reasons for making the changes were as much political and philosophical as linguistic. I was inspired to do this podcast by a book I just finished, called "The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture" by Joshua Kendall. I know many of you reading are not Americans, but I hope you will indulge me and end up finding this story as interesting as I do.

Early America

Noah Webster lived smack in the middle of the time when Americans were still trying to form a country and figure out who they were. To give you some perspective, the United States Constitution was ratified between the time Webster published his first spelling book and when he started working on his famous dictionary.

Americans were eager to break with Britain as fully as possible and weren’t even sure that English should be the primary language. Nearly 10% of the population spoke German, so some people suggested German should be our language. Others proposed Hebrew, and others thought we should call our language Columbian.

'Zee' Versus 'Zed'

Noah Webster's influence is why Americans call the final letter 'zee' instead of 'zed.'

Webster undertook his first big project—an American spelling book to replace the British book schools were using then—in part, to settle the matter and convince people that our language should be English, but American English. It was in this book that he took small steps to begin creating American spellings. It was also in the speller that he taught Americans to pronounce the name of the final letter of the alphabet as “zee” instead of “zed” as the British do.

Political Rationale for Spelling Reform

Webster is best known now as the dictionary writer, but in his time he was involved in politics and knew George Washington and Benjamin Franklin quite well. He regularly wrote political essays,...

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Red: Red Tape, Red Letter Days, Red Herring, Red-Handed, and Rubrics

Recently, I was listening to an episode of the Planet Money podcast, titled “Trump vs. Red Tape,” and after the hosts had said the phrase “red tape” for what felt like the 50th time, I started wondering where we get it. 

Red Tape

Why do we call bureaucracy “red tape”?

It turns out it’s pretty simple. In the 1500s, Charles V, the king of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor, started tying red string or ribbons, also known as “tape,” around administrative documents that were especially important and needed quick attention. It worked well, and the practice quickly spread to other royal courts throughout Europe. (You may remember in the “Duck Tape or Duct Tape” episode we also talked about strips of cloth being called “tape.”)

You can think of the first example in the Oxford English Dictionary, from 1658, as foreshadowing how red tape would come to be something of a problem because it’s about a red-taped bundle being lost:

A Little bundle of Papers tied with a red Tape, were lost on Friday last was a seven night, between Worcester-house and Lincolns-Inn.

Whoever those belonged to was already having his or her project derailed by a problem with red tape! Or at least related to a red-taped bundle.

“Red tape” has been used to describe cumbersome bureaucracy since the 1700s, and I particularly like this example from “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens (1850):

Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape.

And...

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These Ones

(Paraphrased listener question) When my son was in elementary school, I started hearing kids use the phrases “these ones” and “those ones,” and that doesn't sound right to me. It should be “that one” or “those over there,” not “those ones.” But I've also heard other people use the phrases “these ones” and "those ones.” Is that now acceptable English, or even used?

You aren’t the first person to complain about “these ones” and “those ones” sounding wrong, and I’m sure you won’t be the last. So you’re not alone, but there’s no real rule against using those phrases except that sometimes they’re redundant, and redundancy can bother people.

‘These Ones’: Emphasis

To start, the word "ones" can be plural, as in "I like the red ones." So the plurality isn’t a problem.

And to many people, it even sounds OK to say “these ones” when you modify the word “ones.” 

For example, imagine you’re with a friend in a flower shop, and there are lots of different kinds of roses. You could point to a bouquet you particularly like and say, "I like these red ones." Since you’re pointing, you could just say, “I like these,” but by saying “I like these red ones,” you could be implying that of all the red roses, these are your favorites, or you could just be emphasizing their redness (“I like these red ones”). 

Alternatively, if you’re not standing particularly close to the roses, and you point and simply say, “I like these,” your friend could misunderstand and think you mean all the roses in that section. 

In other words, saying “these red ones” instead of just “these” adds information for your friend.

‘These Ones’: Redundancy

“These ones” and “those ones” seem to bother people more when there isn’t a modifier like “red” in “these red ones.” When someone says, “I like these ones,” you could imagine “ones” standing in for “roses”: If someone says, “I like these roses,” nobody ever objects (unless maybe they want to get carnations instead), but if someone says, “I like these ones,” it can seem redundant and annoying, probably because the word “ones” isn’t adding information the way the word “roses” does. Most of the time, it feels like you get the same information with essentially the same emphasis from “I like these,” and “I like...

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What's a Double Negative? 5 Ways to Use Them Correctly

I made an embarrassing mistake the other day. I wrote "I can't hardly believe..." when I should have written "I can hardly believe..."

"Can't hardly" is an example of a double negative—something many writing experts say you should avoid—and it also doesn't make much sense if you look at it logically. Often double negatives mean the opposite of what you are trying to say. (But you may have heard me say before that English isn’t always a logical language, and you’ll see that’s the case here too.)

Double Negatives in Chaucer and Shakespeare

Double negatives used to be much more common in English than they are today, and Chaucer seemed to like them. For example, he describes the Knight in “The Canterbury Tales" by saying, “He never yet no vileness didn’t say.” That’s more than a double  negative! That’s a multiple negative.

Shakespeare also used double negatives. For example, in “As You Like It,” Celia says, “I cannot go no further.” If “you can go no further” was negative, then “you can’t go no further” was even more negative or emphatic.

In Shakespeare’s and Chaucer’s time, it was normal to use double and triple negatives to add emphasis, and even today, other languages, such as Spanish and French, also use double negatives to add emphasis to the negativity. 

In some dialects today, people still use double negatives for emphasis. For example, “I’m not doing nothing” can seem stronger than “I’m not doing anything.” But double negatives like that aren’t considered Standard English anymore. In other words, some people will look down on you if you use them.

The Original Rules Against Double Negatives

It wasn’t until the eighteenth century that prescriptivist grammarians started saying we shouldn’t use double negatives in English because they aren’t logical. Robert Lowth, a bishop and toweringly influential grammarian of his time, and who is also known for promoting the idea that we shouldn’t...

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Interesting Language Stories in the News

  Click the player to hear the interview. This is a summary of the topics we discussed.

Language Influences Memory

We talked about two new studies suggesting that language can influence people, at least in small ways, and we talk about Neal's previous article that includes an anecdote about how people in some cultures have an east arm and a west arm instead of a right and left arm.

Word order predicts a native speakers' working memory. The language we speak affects the way we process, store, and retrieve information. via "Science Daily"

Our language affects what we see. A new look at “the Russian Blues” demonstrates the power of words to shape perception. via "Scientific American"

One Form, One Meaning (OFOM)

Neal and Mignon have both noticed that when there are two spellings of a word (such as "gray" and "grey" and "whoa" and "woah"), some people will assign different meanings to them. For example, people have repeatedly commented that they think "gray" and "grey" are different colors. Neal says linguists know this as the "one form, one meaning" concept, a name given to it by Arnold Zwicky. To paraphrase another linguist, Dwight Bolinger, if two words seem to be synonyms, speakers are drawn to make up stuff in order to preserve OFOM.

Neal explains why he thought suckers and lollipops are different when he was young. 

Universities Are Cutting Foreign Language Programs

Foreign language programs are being cut at an alarming rate. According to CNN, citing a report by the Modern Language Association, "651 foreign language offerings had been terminated between 2013 and 2016," and we find that discouraging because learning foreign languages helped both of us develope a better understanding of English grammar.

Squiggly, Aardvark, and Fenster

We reveal the origins of the...

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An Interview with Benjamin Dreyer

Click on the player to hear the whole interview.

Benjamin Dreyer's book, "Dreyer's English," became a surprise bestseller and is already on its fifth printing just two weeks after the publication date. Dreyer, vice president, executive managing editor and copy chief of Random House, worked on the book for years, and it shows. The kernel of the book started with a New Year's resolution to write every day, and developed into a modern blend of "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" and "Words into Type" (Dreyer's favorite style guide) that allows Dreyer's entertaining voice and many years of copy editing expertise shine through.

In this interview, we talked about 

How Benjamin found his voice.

Benjamin's reaction to some out-of-context coverage of the book.

What he does as a copy chief.

House styles.

Why his book largely ignores AP style.

Some of our favorite tidbits from the fabulous section on fiction writing.

His unusual pet peeves.

How book design has evolved to accomodate digital marketing.

Why the paper used for his book jacket is called "gritty Capote."

The story behind the title of the book.

Why "glamour" still has a U in American English even though most similar words have lost their U.

Click the player above to hear the whole interview or click through to read the entire (rough) transcript.

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Reduplication: Would You Like Milk-Milk With Your Salad-Salad?

One of our recent advertisers, The Real Real, made me think of a cool language thing that’s been on my radar for a few years but that I haven’t covered yet. It’s the doubling of words to show that something is, well, real. I think the first time I heard it was in this ad for the 2015 Ikea catalog: The announcer describes the print catalog as a “book-book.”

Introducing the 2015 Ikea catalog. It’s not a digital book or an ebook, it’s a book-book. The first thing to note is no cables. Not even a power cable. The 2015 Ikea catalog comes fully charged and the battery life is eternal. 

He goes on to talk about tactile technology—turning the page with your finger—and how the content comes preinstalled. It’s fabulous. My husband and I both loved it, and because he prefers print books, and I usually prefer ebooks, to this day we still use “book-book” a lot in our house when we’re talking about his books or when I get a physical book in the mail. “Ooh look! You got a book-book!” (It might be a stretch for Ikea to consider its catalog a book, but the point that they were talking about a physical publication was still abundantly clear.)

'Milk-Milk'

Then, a couple of months ago, the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. was debating whether it would allow producers to use the word “milk” for products like almond milk and soy milk. According to CNBC, people are drinking a lot more of these kinds of plant-based milks, so the dairy industry has spent more than $2 million lobbying this year, which I imagine could be a reason the FDA is suddenly worried that consumers are being misled about the nutritional value of these non-dairy “milk” products. 

And the way I immediately thought about that story was that the FDA was considering limiting the word “milk” so producers could only use it to refer to “milk-milk.” In other words, the original liquid people think of when they think of milk. From what I understand, a law was passed in the EU in 2017 that does stop marketers from using the word “milk” for what some people refer to as���the word fun never stops—“cow-nterfeits.”

Contrastive Focus Reduplication

But doublets like “book-...

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Never Forget How to Spell 'Bureaucracy' Again

  I’ve been interviewing authors for the podcast lately, and one question we always ask is what words give them trouble, and I think more than half of the authors—successful, and in many cases New York Times bestselling authors—more than half of the authors say they can’t spell “bureaucracy,” so if you struggle with it, don’t feel bad. You’re not alone. It’s just a tough word.

First, let’s stipulate that most people don’t have a problem with the “cracy” part at the end. We’re familiar with that from “democracy,” “theocracy” and so on.

So we need help with the “bureau” part.

If you trace it all the way back to Latin, “bureau” shares a root with “burro”—the donkey. Weird, right? The relationship a little convoluted, so I won’t go into it for our purposes, but it’s easy to imagine that a bureaucrat not helping you from behind a desk is a stubborn donkey, a stubborn burro who won’t help you. And “burro” is a lot easier to spell: B-U-R-R-O.

Now, imagine that donkey not only stubbornly not helping you, but also putting on perfume while ignoring you and not helping you. A stubborn burrow putting perfume behind its ears. “Eau de obstruction.” How rude! 

This part might be a little tougher, but anyone who has shopped for perfume should have encountered phrases like “eau de toilette” and “eau de cologne.” The spelling of that “eau" part is what’s in the middle of “bureaucracy.” So imagine a stubborn burro dotting perfume behind its ears, and take the “bur” part from “burro,” (B-U-R) and the “eau” part from “eau de obstruction.” (E-A-U) Add a “cracy” on the end, and you have “bureaucracy.” 

It may seem silly—I know it does!—but I used to never be able to spell this word, and I’ve gotten it right every time since I came up with that little story, so I hope it helps you too.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock. 

Mignon Fogarty is Grammar Girl and the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips. Check out her New York Times best-seller, “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.”

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Paula Brackston on Names, Language, and Life as a Writer

Click on the player to hear the entire interview.

Paula Brackston writes a successful book series that started with the New York Times bestseller "The Witch's Daughter," and now she's embarking on another series with her new book, "The Little Shop of Found Things." The new series is set in Wiltshire country in England and follows the story of Xanthe as she uses her gift for connecting with the history of objects to travel through time. In this first book, Xanthe travels back to 1605 to solve a mystery that involves a chatelaine.

Despite the fact that the books have fantasy elements, Brackston says she still does a lot of research to make sure all the historical elements are accurate, and she talks about using language stragetically to set a tone for her books. "When I’m writing 1605," she says, "obviously, people speak very differently. I can't have them speaking exactly as they would have because it would be hard work for the reader, so I have a stylized version, and it’s the same when I'm doing the descriptive writing whether it’s in the present day or the past. I'm trying to give a flavor of that time, a sense of something other, something historical, something different, and I think you can't really do that using everyday words too much."

Here's an example from the first paragraph of the book:

It’s a commonly held belief that the most likely place to find a ghost is beneath a shadowy moon, among the ruins of a castle, or perhaps an abandoned house where the living have fled leaving only spirits to drift from room to room. To believe so is to acknowledge but half a truth, for there is a connection with those passed over to be found much nearer home. Every soul that once trod this brutal earth leaves their imprint upon the things that mattered to them.

Brackston's characters' names also lend a mysterious feel to the book. For example, the main character, Xanthe, gets her name from a Greek word that means "the golden one" or "fair haired." Brackston says, "I like the sound of it. I like the look of it on the page. I liked the fact that it wasn't going to get muddled up with anybody else." She adds, "To see the shape of the word is quite interesting to me. I like that."

Brackston laughed as she described her career and getting her first novel published. "I was one of those overnight successes that takes about 10 years." "The Witch's Daughter" was first picked up by a small British publisher and then discovered by Peter Wolverton, an editor at Thomas Dunne at St....

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Sign Up for Grammar Girl's AP Style Webinar

You're about to hit send on your latest pitch, story or newsletter when you're stopped in your tracks.

"Did I correctly use numbers in the headline?" "Did I misplace that comma?"

Don't let uncertainty over AP style make you question the quality of your work. Whether you're a beginner or an intermediate writer, learn valuable writing skills during my Guide to AP Style Webinar on Feb. 28, 2018 from 1-2:30 p.m. CT.

I'll be talking about when it's appropriate to use serial commas, the most important updates to the AP Stylebook, the exceptions to tricky grammar rules, and more. Join by yourself or with a group—all participants will be able to ask questions and will receive the presentation slides, handouts and an on-demand recording.

Save money when you sign up here! 

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Irregardless Versus Regardless

Today's topic is “irregardless.”

Hi, Grammar Girl. I'm an English teacher in Boston, Massachusetts, and I am freaking out. One of my students tells me that “irregardless” is now a word, and apparently it's been added to some dictionaries. Can you clear this up for me? This is serious panic time.

In the immortal words of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": Don't panic. “Irregardless” is a word, but it's not a proper word, and your student's assertion that it's in some dictionaries is a great opportunity to talk about the different kinds of entries in dictionaries.

‘Irregardless' Versus ‘Regardless’

First, let's talk about “irregardless.” Some people mistakenly use “irregardless” when they mean “regardless,” and that’s considered to be an error. “Regardless” means “regard less,” “without regard,” or “despite something.” For example, Squiggly will eat chocolate regardless of the consequences (meaning Squiggly will eat chocolate without regard for the consequences, despite the consequences, and so on).

The prefix “ir-“ is a negative prefix, so if you add the prefix “ir-" to a word that's already negative like “regardless,” you're making a double-negative that means literally “without without regard.”

The first example the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) shows for “irregardless” is from another dictionary: Harold Wentworth’s American Dialect Dictionary from 1912, which places the origin of the word in western Indiana. Other words from the American Dialect Dictionary include “doodad,” “dojigger,” “finagle,” “fuddy-duddy,” and “nummies” to describe delicious food. We definitely know how to make up silly words.

But I have good news...

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What's Your Family Slang?

  In 2017, I asked people on Twitter what it's called when a family has words only they understand, and some people said it’s called family slang or kitchen table lingo, and a couple of people said it’s called a “familect” or “familiolect.” 

If a dialect is the language of people in a certain region or group, and an idiolect is one person’s way of speaking, then a familiolect is one family’s way of speaking. People shared their funny stories, for example, Caroline’s father calls the microwave “Chernobyl” and Norma’s family calls pants “ralls” because they are the bottom part of overalls. 

A familiolect is one family’s way of speaking.

Here's an example from my family: We call ficus trees Normans, and I bet nobody else does that. 

When my husband and I were students, we had only one car, so I rode my bike a lot. Well, one day, I was out on my bike and I decided to buy my husband a small potted ficus tree. I put it in my backpack, but it was so big the backpack wouldn't close, and then it started to rain, so by the time I got home, the tree and I were both a muddy mess. The night before, we had watched a movie called “City Slickers” in which Billy Crystal’s character delivers a calf named Norman in a muddy field or barn in a rainstorm, so when I pulled the muddy ficus tree out of my backpack and presented it to Pat, he said, “It’s Norman!” Ever since, when we see a ficus tree, we call it Norman.

When we see a ficus tree, we call it Norman.

I’d love to hear and share the stories behind your family’s kitchen table lingo. so leave a voicemail and tell me your story at 833-214-GIRL.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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