I'm joining Mignon Fogarty on the @grammargirl.bsky.social podcast livestream to celebrate her 20th year of podcasting, and I'd love for you to join the party! It's free, live, interactive, and includes book giveaways. Thursday, Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. EST Deets: www.quickanddirtytips.com/ggliveevent/

Twenty Years of Grammar Girl, and You Are Invited! - Quick and Dirty Tips

Grammar Girl Live Game Show! Grammar Girl is celebrating 20 years of the podcast with a free live word-game show, hosted by Mignon! The live-streamed, interactive party will include you, your favorite...

quickanddirtytips.com

Looking at home decor this season and mildly entertained by the post apocalyptic color palettes Would you like your cozy throw pillows in fascist ash, depresso espresso, or a nice Werner Herzog beige?

The wee ones have lost their spots!

Welcome, Autumnal Equinox. The King of Autumn greets thee.🍂

I may have already recommended Robert Jackson Bennett’s books, but I just finished the third of his Shadow of the Leviathan series, and I will reiterate that they are phenomenal books. Dark and Lovecraftian and gory and cerebral but also sweet and heartfelt and wonderfully worldbuilt.

So where are we all standing on Fat Bear Week? I've seen a bunch of people calling it for 910, and I wouldn't be disappointed (oh yeah, she chonky). Bucky's transformation is dramatic as hell, and Walker clearly has the most caked up hiney. But I still think everyone's sleeping on Backpack.

Just finished Widow’s Bay and I want MORE

What are you working on instead of whatever else you’re supposed to be working on?

Jess Zafarris@jesszafarris.com · 3d ago

Responsibility is truly the most effective flint and tinder for distracting passion projects

I keep sitting down to write the nonfiction book I’m already contracted to write, but the novel idea I’ve been noodling on comes out instead.

The thing I'm most excited about for the release of my next book (Into the Words: An Etymologist's Field Guide to Plants, Animals, and Nature) is the clever illustrations that my sister, Melissa Farris, created for the book. Each one captures multiple facets of the species' etymology stories.

I just learned a fun thing! Quick also means alive. So, when speaking of the quick of the nail, you are talking about the alive bit… & when you’re talking about “the quick and the dead,” you aren’t saying a dead person is not as fast a an alive person (as true as that might be). @jesszafarris.com

J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 75, July 7, 1944, to his son Christopher: “There is the tragedy and despair of all machinery laid bare. Unlike art which is content to create a new secondary world in the mind, it attempts to actualize desire, and so to create power in this World; …

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

BIG congrats to @robwords.com on 1 mil YouTube subscribers!

TIL: We call it “Football” because it’s play ON foot, not because it’s played WITH the feet. Contrast with people of leisure of the time, who had and liked to show off their horses in playing their sports (polo, steeplechase, jumping, dressage). “Football” is common, and low-class in its origin.

Jess Zafarris@jesszafarris.com · last wk.

Words Unravelled hit 100 episodes! 🥳🎉 @robwords.com and I are celebrating with 100 of our favorite rapid-fire word facts from the past 50 episodes. Catch the latest episode here (or wherever you get your podcasts!): www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PM_...

Words Unravelled hit 100 episodes! 🥳🎉 @robwords.com and I are celebrating with 100 of our favorite rapid-fire word facts from the past 50 episodes. Catch the latest episode here (or wherever you get your podcasts!): www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PM_...

hey past Jess: fuck you (Today I recorded this passage for the audiobook of Useless Etymology)

Get you a brew dog (or two) for Oktoberfest

Last night I got up to use the bathroom, and when I came back my husband was waiting in the dark to scare me He succeeded, and I’d be annoyed at him except that I’m more piqued that the THREE dogs in the room did absolutely fuck all when I screamed

Everyone's going on about remaking movies with the Muppets. I want more Muppet classic novel adaptations. Give me Kermit as the Count of Monte Cristo Piggy as Emma The Three Muppeteers Alice in Muppetland Bunsenstein and an undead Sweetums Kermlock and Fozzson with Rowlf, Hound of the Baskervilles

I was just looking at NFL logos, and I noticed that every (this isn't the right word but) "directional" logo—that is, every logo that features an animal or gives you the sense that the logo is going or looking somewhere is headed to the right, except for the Eagles, whose logo is headed to the left.

P.s. Hidden idiom... The Dutch word "balen" (to be fed up) is a hidden idiom. It stems from the 17th century? sarcastic phrase "tabak hebben van" (to have tobacco of something). People exaggerated this to "balen tabak" (bales of tobacco), which eventually shortened to the modern verb "balen".

I've always thought "Piman no yo na atama" in Japanese is a funny one. It means head like a pepper, mostly empty with just a few seeds rattling around in it. Pepper head!

oooh, I know literally hundreds from Portuguese! - subir no telhado (to climb onto the roof). We say someone has climbed onto the roof when their imminent death is forecast, e.g. was admitted to the ICU. We more frequently say it about projects that are perceived to be discontinued soon

A wonderfully useful one in Portuguese is 'para inglês ver' (literally 'for an Englishman's eyes'). You do something 'para inglês ver' when you act for appearances only, often without even doing anything at all. It goes back to when the British navy took it upon itself to apprehend foreign... 1/2

"Llevarse el gato al agua". Put the cat into the water, that is, do a difficult task. Spanish.

French has some great idioms but my absolute favourite is “entre chien et loup” for twilight/dusk It translates as “between dog and wolf” and is intended to evoke that time of falling darkness when it harder to identify what’s approaching you…

We’re doing an episode of Words Unravelled on idioms from around the world, and I’d love some recommendations! What’s a non-English idiom you know, and what does it mean? Cc: @robwords.com

Today I learned that the phrase "I'm done my work" which I thought was perfectly normal and grammatical is A UNIQUE CANADIAN* LINGUISTIC FEATURE??? *and Philadelphia for some reason