“Grammar Girl? She must be a superhero!” exclaimed my daughter Katey last week when she was peeking over my shoulder as I read some of my tweets.
After I finished laughing, I stopped to think about what Katey said. I guess Katey’s right: Grammar Girl is my superhero. Anyone who can take a subject that could be dry (at best) and turn it into an intriguing, humorous and award-winning podcast and then a book has done something amazing, something that most humans cannot do. That sounds like superhero work to me!
I’ve been a listener of Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl podcast for about six months now. My favorite episode of Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips is the one on when to use lay and when to use lie. My tendency had been to substitute a word rather than figure out the rule. Now I think I may understand it! (The true test of this will occur when I explain to my public relations students when to use which word.)
Wednesday evening, Katey and I are making a girls-only road trip to the Atlanta area to meet Mignon in person and have our copy of Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing signed.
To subscribe to the Grammar Girl podcast, visit the Quick and Dirty Tips website. You’ll be glad you did.
Take the Grammar Girl Challenge; it’s on the right sidebar of Public Relations Matters. Let me know how you did!
And finally, if you know what the punctuation mark is right under the letter G in “girl” in Katey’s poster, drop me a comment here. Hint: Look close; it’s not a question mark.
One of my former students at Georgia Southern University found out recently that the job interview she secured also involves a writing test. She asked for some advice on how to best prepare. So . . . here we go.. Though it was written long before most recent grads’ grandparents were born, its principles of simplicity and clarity still ring true.
, and use Post-It flags to mark sections that are problematic to you. Maybe even take some of the online AP style quizzes.
