[00:00:00.130] - Mignon Fogarty Hi, this is Mignon Fogarty from The Grammar Girl Podcast. I'm speaking English right now, and this is The Fluent Show. [00:00:18.390] - Kerstin Cable Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to The Fluent Show, a podcast all about loving, living, learning, languages, and reaching your potential, too. My name is Kerstin Cable. I'm from fluentlanguage.co.uk. And here on the show we talk about languages, communication, curiosity, and enriching our lives through the challenge of learning something new and dismiss. I have so been looking forward to bringing you this week's episode because it's an interview with what can I say? An idol, a pioneer, someone who inspires me and really showed me how podcasting can be used in languages. This is somebody who you might have heard of. You might have read one of her best selling books, you might have listened to her podcast. You might have seen her on Oprah. What? Yes, that's right. It is no one other than Mignon Fogarti, better known as Grammar Girl. And she hosts a podcast and has been doing for I think 14 years called Grammar Girls Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. And she's also the founder of the Quick and Dirty Tips Network, where you can find lots and lots of Quick and Dirty Tip podcasts to make your life easier. So that is today's interview. [00:01:42.700] - Kerstin Cable I've got Mignon Fogarty, and we've spoken about so many interesting things. Before we get crack in, let's give a shout out to none other than ClozeMaster, the sponsor of The Fluent show. Learning with the ClozeMaster app is fun, free and fantastic for expanding your vocab in so many different languages. The game is simple and is gamified like most language learning apps that really do a good job. The game is simple. You see a sentence in your target language with something missing, and then it's your challenge to fill in the blanks correctly. And what ClozeMasters gives you is more than just a streak that keeps you coming back. It is an exercise that trains you to understand context, use vocabulary, train listening skills and expand your vocab, which is really brilliant if you're intermediate or you're advanced and you kind of want to develop and get off the Plateau and go even further. So that's ClozeMaster. And you can see my little demo of it at ClozeMasters, C-L-O-Z-E-M-A-S-T-E-R com/fluentshow, or in my own dialect, C-L-O-Z-E-M-A-S-T-E-R.com/fluentshow. And when you go there, you can get 10% lifetime off of their Pro membership. [00:03:01.980] - Kerstin Cable It's entirely free, but the Pro membership, if you choose to adopt it, purchase it ever. It will unlock more features for you and it'll help support this independent language learning app. So don't hesitate to head over to ClozeMaster and have a little look see what they've got on offer. Now, Mignon, I've already sort of hinted at streaks and that is one of the topics that I discussed with Mignon in the podcast today. And we also talked about why she is Grammar Girl and not Grammar Woman. It's very interesting and Furthermore, how grammar is seen and how important or not important it is to get your grammar correct and in which situations you might want to think about it and in which situations you can throw most of the rules out the window. So this is a great conversation for anyone who is learning the English language, but also a great conversation for all of us as language learners because it gives a really good insight into where our own language is at. And I believe that understanding your own language is the first step to understanding all the other languages that we are learning. And beyond that, Mignon is also a truly inspiring entrepreneur who has a lot to say, and it just brings such a positivity and joy of what she's doing. [00:04:18.440] - Kerstin Cable So I'm just waffling now. I'm just telling you lots of great things about her. Why don't we meet her head over into the interview? Over to Mignon Fogarty for this week's episode of The Fluent Show. Bonjour, Mignon. Hello, Mignon. [00:04:33.030] - Mignon Fogarty Hello, Kirsten. Thank you so much for having me on your show. [00:04:35.930] - Kerstin Cable Oh, I'm just over the moon. Thank you so much for taking the time and being here and doing this little exchange. So just plug it at the start. I'm going to be on the Grammar Girl show. We're doing a bit of an exchange kind of situation here, and I've got so many questions for you, Mignon. I think I'm just going to jump right in. Do you know how I know you? First through my husband, because he told me that he listens to the Grammar Girl podcast, and this was before I started my show, which I did, like eight years ago. So how long have you been a language podcaster? [00:05:13.840] - Mignon Fogarty Oh, my gosh, that's wonderful. I love to hear when people discover it through word of mouth. A friend telling a friend the family member that's the best way. So this summer, I just celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Grammar Girl podcast. I never thought I'd be doing it this long, but I'm grateful that I've been able to. [00:05:35.290] - Kerstin Cable 15 years of podcasting. It must be a completely different environment now. [00:05:40.570] - Mignon Fogarty It's different, but I don't think it's dramatically different. My show is longer and a little bit more professional, and I have a better microphone, but I'm essentially doing the same thing I did back then, which is giving people advice, helping them learn to write better, and telling them interesting stories about words and language. There's a lot more competition now. We're competing with Conan O'Brien and people like that. [00:06:07.030] - Mignon Fogarty But at the base. [00:06:09.000] - Mignon Fogarty I think it's still the same and anyone can still start a podcast. And I love that about the medium. [00:06:15.130] - Kerstin Cable And you never have to explain to anyone what it is that you're doing? [00:06:19.830] - Mignon Fogarty Sometimes, but not nearly as often as I used to. I confess that in the past, occasionally I would just tell new people I was a writer because I just didn't want to get into the whole explaining what a podcast is sometimes. And now I don't fear telling people I'm a podcaster anymore that it's not I'm not going to get a blank stare and have to explain for ten minutes what that means. [00:06:40.330] - Kerstin Cable Very true. Did you do language at University and sort of throughout your whole education? Was that always your thing? [00:06:49.050] - Mignon Fogarty Kind of, yeah. I was an English major in my undergraduate. I always loved reading and writing. I took a big diversion. I went to graduate school. I was in a PhD program for biology doing genetic research on fruit flies. And I did that for six years. And then I decided that wasn't for me and went back to writing and became a science writer and a technology writer for a few years then before I became Grammar Girl. [00:07:19.150] - Kerstin Cable So it's through writing that you got more into being Grammar Girl. What is it about writing in particular that sort of brings out the what is it the language doubt the language excitement? [00:07:33.790] - Mignon Fogarty Oh, well, it's the style guides. So I was writing for different clients, and I was looking things up in the AP Style Guide and the Chicago Manual of Style because different clients use different style guides. And I just started getting really intrigued by all the different rules. And then I was making up little memory tricks to help myself remember because when I took my English degree, I studied the symbolism of swords and Beowulf not the more nitpicky little rules that come with writing. So I was still having to look things up every day. And then because I love technology so much, I heard about this new thing called podcasting, and I thought, well, maybe people would appreciate a little writing tip every week. Since I'm looking them up for myself and making up these stories, I'm able to share them with people and try out this thing called podcasting. And that's really how it got started. [00:08:29.000] - Kerstin Cable Yeah, that's sort of how I got started the same way, sort of playfully, without really expecting to still be there, like years later to still do the thing. And now do you still always find new things that you're excited about? [00:08:43.750] - Mignon Fogarty I do. One of the things I love is that almost every week I still am learning something new about language, whether it's a word origin or some rule that's actually different from what my third grade teacher told me it was. And people write and call with questions that make me look up things I wouldn't have thought to look into. And yeah, I love that I'm still almost always learning new things. [00:09:09.670] - Kerstin Cable Can I ask you about your audience and the kind of listeners that you have? Because podcasting is global, but you must share an American perspective on writing and language, right? [00:09:23.010] - Mignon Fogarty I try to include things about British English and Australian English when I know them, when I'm aware of them, but I don't always know. But I do try to take a little bit of a global perspective. But my Americanness does seep in and that is generally the focus. My audience, I think it's about 60% in the US, and then all the other big English speaking countries are next. But we have a big audience in the Philippines and Brazil and Japan, more than 200 countries. We have listeners, which is pretty common for a podcast, because people can listen from anywhere. I hear from everything, from CEOs who make their staff listen and teachers who use it in class. But I've heard from people in China who are using it to learn English because we have full transcripts. So you can listen and follow along with the text. And a lot of people who are learning English really like that. There's that part of the audience, too. [00:10:26.080] - Kerstin Cable Oh, yeah. This is fascinating, isn't it? You start a thing as almost well, first of all, for your own kind of enjoyment, but thinking about, well, maybe other people who are techy writers, other people who are science writers need this help, and it's grown into a real resource for the world. Now let me ask you. Okay, so what are the misconceptions, the biggest misconceptions that you run into that people have about grammar? [00:10:58.010] - Mignon Fogarty I think that one of the things when people are learning a second language, they don't always get the grammar right, and that does not mean they're less intelligent. I guess the biggest misconception is that when people don't use quote, unquote proper grammar, that somehow they're not as smart as someone else. And I just hate that misconception. It's not true at all. I think it's really important to listen to the content of what people are saying or writing and not dismiss everything they're saying because they used the wrong word here or there. It's just not true. And I guess another big misconception is that if people don't use quote, unquote, standard English, again, that they're lazy. And again, it's just not true. There are dialects of English and other languages, and if you are speaking a dialect you grew up with or it's your natural language, it doesn't mean you're less intelligent. And dialects follow their own rules and are just as valid as standard English. So, yeah, I think that those misconceptions that if you're not speaking perfect standard English, you're either lazy or not as smart are terrible. And they bother me a lot. [00:12:23.430] - Kerstin Cable Yes. I think it's what makes the concept of grammar, or maybe this is a learners thing. I think it intimidates so many people as if it's almost something that is so difficult to understand. It's not part of the language you already speak, as if it's this thing that is external that you now need to understand. Additionally, when actually it underlies the thing you already know and you're already doing well. [00:12:47.860] - Mignon Fogarty Right. And I guess I walk this fine line because, you know, the show is called Grammar Girl and people come to it wanting answers and they come to it definitive answers. This is the quote unquote right way to do something. My goal is to help people write better and succeed in school and business. And that does mean learning standard English. So I talk about the rules and how to do things right. But I try very hard to do that without stigmatizing dialects and language learners who aren't getting everything perfect. So it's a fine line that I have to walk. And I hope that I'm successful most of the time. [00:13:30.630] - Kerstin Cable So you don't subscribe to one correct way of using English. Have you done any spotlights or sort of episodes on specific variants or dialects of the English language? [00:13:42.790] - Mignon Fogarty I did one a few years ago on Global English because I'm just fascinated by the vocabulary words that people in India, for example, come up with for their version of English. The cobrother is a word I remember that it's a family relationship that I can't remember exactly what it is. It's like the brother of your in law or something like that. It's a family relationship we don't have a word for in English, but once you hear it, you're like, oh, that's so useful. [00:14:13.830] - Kerstin Cable Cobrother. [00:14:15.990] - Mignon Fogarty Yeah. It's not your brother in law, but it's something like a brotherinlaw but with a different relative. I'm sorry, I can't remember the exact relationship. [00:14:27.090] - Kerstin Cable Can I ask you as sort of the authority of English in the American in America or one of at least someone I've spoken to is an authority on this? Where do you see the role of the American? Where is it African American vernacular English? Cause I feel like maybe that's just cause I'm nerdy and on the Internet, or maybe it is a social movement. I feel like the attention paid respect paid to it is growing. [00:14:54.750] - Mignon Fogarty Yeah, I think that's true. And there's also a growing recognition that a lot of our slang that white Americans adopt five years after it was popular in the African American community, there's more acknowledgment that that's where mainstream, I guess slang often comes from. I'm thinking about, like, I think the words of the year. The American Dialect Society has their words of the year. We just did that. And one of the slang words of the year was. Yesify. Which means to apply lots of filters to a photo to make it super beautiful to the point where it almost becomes cartoonish. Maybe. So you yesify your photos on Instagram, maybe a little too much, or maybe it just looks gorgeous. But I think there's an acknowledgment that that sort of comes from African American culture and maybe like, yes, girl. Yeah. And there's much more acknowledgement of that. I think another one, if I remember right, is saying, like, oh, I have the receipts. If you're accusing someone of something and you have proof to say, oh, I have the receipts on you. I think if I remember right, that also came from African American Vernacular English. So just a lot of slang and useful words. [00:16:24.760] - Mignon Fogarty I wouldn't call have the receipts. Even slang started in other dialects of English. And it's fabulous. [00:16:35.050] - Kerstin Cable It really is. It's an example. And I think you just get that little buzz of excitement when you hear something like yesify, you're like, yes, it captures something that you haven't had words for, but you've sort of observed. And it's so wonderful to be able to celebrate creative use. And I think it's creative use of language. And there is a lot of creativity coming from other communities of English users. And it's good to know that. And it's important to know what to say. I think this is real importance in someone like Grammar Girls, someone like the American Dialect Society. Taking and celebrating those words and acknowledging like, this is originally coming from here. And this is a good thing. This isn't bad use of language. They're not people who can't use language properly. They are people who are using language remarkably right. [00:17:30.450] - Mignon Fogarty In African American Vernacular English has its own grammatical structure. It's not lazy English or wrong English. It follows rules just like standard English. If people who speak standard English, if they try to mimic African American Vernacular English, they often get it wrong because they don't understand the rules of that language. So it's kind of interesting. [00:17:55.910] - Kerstin Cable Does it currently exist without a written variant or. It's not really written a lot? [00:18:02.870] - Mignon Fogarty Probably not. Although in fiction, I think in dialogue. In fiction, you'll find it. But I'm not aware of. But I wouldn't be aware. [00:18:13.550] - Kerstin Cable I was just thinking like it's online, of course. But it's not necessarily a space that we are privileged to. Right? [00:18:21.570] - Mignon Fogarty I mean, I'm not aware of like a magazine that's published in that dialesh, but there very well could be. That'd be cool. [00:18:28.190] - Kerstin Cable Oh, my gosh. If you're out there and you do see or know about written variants off American African, apologies. African American Vernacular English, please let me know. I'm just ever so curious. Okay. Now I want to ask you about being Grammar Girl. Right. Because now we even talk about do we use the word girl to describe a grown woman? Because I believe you are definitely older than me in your 50s. Is that right? [00:18:57.120] - Mignon Fogarty I'm not telling. [00:19:03.930] - Kerstin Cable In this girl brand and this sort of Grammar Girl, but also like being the nerdy girl. Yet you are like, you're a female entrepreneur. You're like a podcasting pioneer. Do you take pride in being Grammar Girl? Yes. [00:19:16.690] - Mignon Fogarty It's such an interesting question because I have been criticized for calling myself girl. That somehow that's diminishing myself. I like the alliteration. I didn't put a lot of thought into. I was starting this as a hobby. I came up with the name. I loved the alliteration. And I also love that grammar is so intimidating and girl is unintimidating and my avatar is a cartoon character. I try to make it really friendly and not scary, and so girl really falls into that. But I've certainly had people say you should be Grammar Woman. And when I was a professor, there was a fellow professor who refused to get an older man who refused to refer to me as Grammar Girl and always called me Grammar Woman. And I thought that was really annoying because call me what I choose to be called. I think that's diminishing in a different way and insulting in a different way. [00:20:07.500] - Kerstin Cable Absolutely. [00:20:12.250] - Mignon Fogarty And I do. I love being the nerdy girl. The word nerd, it's just who I am. [00:20:19.760] - Kerstin Cable Yes. It's nice to have sort of nerd pride. Top of the podcast charts. Yeah. [00:20:27.720] - Mignon Fogarty But you also asked about entrepreneurship. When I was a Professor, I was the chair of media entrepreneurship. I founded the Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast Network, which is one of the earliest independent podcasting networks. And I still am a partner in that today and involved essentially, it's an advisory level, but it's very hard to have both personas online. So I don't talk a lot online about my business role because I feel like it doesn't really fit with the Grammar Girl role. Like, you think of Grammar Girl as the friendly word nerd. Interesting. And that really, in my mind, at least, doesn't mix well with the businesswoman entrepreneur leader of a business concept. I guess I've always struggled with balancing those two. And there was a point when the network grew so big, I really had to choose between being the business leader or being Grammar Girl. And we came to the conclusion that there are a lot of people who could run the business, but it would be hard to replace me as Grammar Girl. I am Grammar Girl. So I stepped away from the business leadership role because there just weren't enough hours in the day to do both. [00:21:52.130] - Mignon Fogarty And I felt like the business was better served to have me as the content creator. [00:21:55.800] - Kerstin Cable Oh, fascinating. This is really fascinating. Now let's go back to language. Let me ask you about any recent developments or sort of changes you've seen in language in the last years. We've obviously gone through quite the ride over the last two years, and there's been all these different aspects. We've had the pandemic. We've got a rise, I feel, of gender neutral language. We've got a rise of diversity, equity and inclusiontype feelings, which then are reflected in language. Is there anything that you are particularly excited about that you like, look at and you go with about time this happened. [00:22:37.900] - Mignon Fogarty Yeah. So it's not just the last couple of years, it's maybe over the last eight or ten years, but the singular they using the word they to refer to one person, especially a gender neutral person or binary person who wants to be referred to as they has become just vastly more acceptable than it was 15 years ago. When I started podcasting, I predicted that maybe ten years ago I predicted that it would be acceptable in my lifetime, but maybe it might take 20 years. And now every style guide accepts the use of the singular they. And it's been rapid and fascinating. I'm so glad. And it's funny because in the language world, when the language nerds that I hang out with, it's so accepted and so common that to me it's unremarkable at this point. But then when I teach courses, I teach AP style guide with Ranking communications. Twice a year we have webinars and it comes up that people will still say, well, we're not allowed to use that in my organization or my readers would never accept that. And it throws me every time. And so I'm reminded that we need to keep talking about how to use it and why it works and how it's polite to use, just like I want to be referred to as girl. [00:24:04.070] - Mignon Fogarty If someone wants to be referred to as they, then you respect that the English language. I don't know. Respect for the English language shouldn't make you a jerk. Oh my gosh, that's my line. Language changes. I say that it changes just fast enough to be annoying. I'm sure anyone who has made it into their 60s or 70s has all sorts of peeves about when we were young, people said it this way, and now kids today. But what they don't realize is that their grandparents were saying the same things about them and the way they spoke. The best example I have is today a lot of people will say they graduated College. Older people will say, no, it's graduated from College, you graduated from College. But then much older people will say, no, you were graduated from College. So it has gone from work, graduated from College. She graduated from College to graduated College, spanning essentially three generations. So if you're annoyed by graduated College, know that your parents and grandparents were annoyed by graduated from College. [00:25:27.470] - Kerstin Cable Now I'm wondering what people used to get annoyed about before me. Now getting annoyed unjustly, and I don't allow myself any space for it. But I noticed in myself this little Twitch when somebody sends me an invite, especially when it's someone British, because I feel like it's like a new thing. And I'm like, yes, thank you so much for the invitation. I'll send you one back and I make the point of using invitation even though I know that I am being annoying. [00:25:58.910] - Mignon Fogarty Another interesting one. I talked about this in my TEDx talk a few years ago. So a lot of people get annoyed by the word adulting, say, oh, adulting is hard. That's a common thing for young people to say, I don't know. I say it, but people don't realize that parenting was a word like that. It wasn't until the 1970s that parenting really became a common word and not something that annoyed people, in large part because of Parenting magazine and its popularity. But before that, people complained about parenting just as much as they complained about the word adulting today. [00:26:32.890] - Kerstin Cable Oh, wow. I want Adulting magazine, though. [00:26:38.290] - Mignon Fogarty Absolutely. And so when you learn about all these things that you consider completely normal that people used to complain about, like it used to be wrong to call curtains drapes. Also, for example, you hear about all these things and you think, that's ridiculous. And then you realize, so what's annoying me is probably ridiculous, too. [00:26:56.030] - Kerstin Cable That's it. What am I being ridiculous about? We've lost a less and fewer battle. If there was ever a battle, we lost it like ages ago. And the invite invitation thing is just like hot on the heels. And it's absolutely fine. It's absolutely fine. I just feel like as long as we are going to understand each other's messages, language is only going to evolve to be even simpler and make it ever easier and just cut corners. And that is the way evolution works. [00:27:29.130] - Mignon Fogarty Putting on my other hat, I would also say, but if you're writing a formal business letter to someone who is older, you might want to consider using more older or traditional language, especially if it's a high stake situation, like a cover letter for a job. I talk about cover letter grammar. Sometimes that's where you want to be extra careful and not use adulting and invite and saying you gifted something to someone, for example. [00:27:56.490] - Kerstin Cable Absolutely. And I feel like that way, putting it that way, you're making it less about what's correct and what's not correct, and making it a little bit more about the formality and just expectations in a specific type of environment. Fascinating. Right. I have a question that's sort of a little bit sidestep, but I think I wanted to ask you about languages you're learning. And there's a question that came in from one of my listeners, which is, as a native English teacher, how do I become more confident with my own grammar? And I feel like these are connected somehow. [00:28:33.370] - Mignon Fogarty Yeah. So I've been trying to learn Spanish for at least a year, a little longer maybe, and definitely learning a foreign language has helped, even at my level, has helped me become more familiar with grammatical structures. Because when you're learning a language, it seems like you're learning more about verbs and pronouns and articles and things like that. You're thinking more about the role that a word plays in a sentence as you're learning a whole new language. But I have a question for you about learning languages. I was using, I won't say the name, but one of those apps that rewards you for getting a streak for having a streak in learning a language. And I lost my streak two days before the one year Mark, and I was stunned by my reaction. I was so upset, so discouraged. I haven't gone back for almost two months, and I wasn't learning Spanish for the badges. But somehow that losing that streak discouraged me so much. So is Gamification bad? Is it wrong? Should I have just buckled down with a workbook or something? Like, help me here? [00:29:51.370] - Kerstin Cable Oh, gosh, that's got so many different layers. I don't think Gamification is bad as such. I do think that it's important to not confuse doing an app with learning a language. [00:30:09.730] - Kerstin Cable If you're learning the language, you kind of want to diversify your input a little bit and follow. I talk about guiding resource and then having input resources. So you want one thing that kind of guides you through a curriculum, which could be your app. I have no idea what app you're talking about, except I can imagine very well. So, for example, say if you're doing Duolingo, if you were to do that, then you know how it's got the skill tree and that's sort of its version of a curriculum. So it does guide you through something, and that is actually similar to a workbook. And then the gamification is just something that it does on top. But really it's more or less like a glorified workbook. And the true full, let's say, expression of learning a language obviously has lots of different aspects. Right. So you may want to also practice speaking at the same time. You might want different Spanish inputs. Or maybe you find something. Maybe you find a lot of my listeners really like finding a TV show. You could have what's it called Money heist on Netflix. Right. Just sort of get a little bit more input coming in so that you get more touch points and more like relevant stuff in your life that is Spanish related. [00:31:26.100] - Kerstin Cable And that way when you lose the streak, you don't drop off learning Spanish because the Gamification is it gives you a really good motivation and external motivation. But when you look at psychology and motivation in learning a language, it's intrinsic motivation. That is kind of the long haul type of thing. So a lot of the work that I do with people is to try and access the long haul type of motivation. And that doesn't have to be I'm going on a trip or I'm moving to Mexico or whatever it can be. I want to feel the reward. I want to feel myself getting better. I want to see the rewards of sticking with this. And if you dig a little bit deeper into that, I know we're getting a bit journaly here, but that's, I guess how I teach this. If you dig a bit deeper into that and you kind of make yourself a list of all the things that you're excited about with Spanish, then the gamification can still be there, but it shouldn't anchor everything that you do, if that makes sense. [00:32:22.910] - Mignon Fogarty Yeah, that's good. And actually, after listening to your podcast, I felt motivated. Again, I think your podcast is great inspiration and help to keep going. [00:32:33.240] - Kerstin Cable Actually, people can't see people blush on podcasts. Thank you. Yes. It's essentially it's why my podcast is the way it is, because I go out of my way to not do like, this is the best way to do this thing. And here are seven super tricks for doing this. I do want to dig a little bit deeper because I think the reward is learning something new. The reward is the enrichment that you get from the achievement, which I think in society, especially English native societies, it's not really seen that way. We see another language of utility, and we feel like we have to justify it somehow. And actually when the utility comes from the inside, that is an incredibly great language learning motivation. And it's a really good thing to hold on to as you kind of keep going. Plus, it makes you more creative and it makes you more confident as a learner, right? [00:33:36.700] - Mignon Fogarty Yeah. I just love the words. I remember when I learned that vocca was the Spanish word for cow, and then I realized that that's where the word vaccine comes from is also the same. I think Latin root for cow because the vaccines were originally for, I think, a disease called cowpox. It was this wonderful moment. I was learning Spanish, and the light bulb went on above my head. [00:34:03.110] - Kerstin Cable That's it seeing the connections, like seeing the map kind of come to life. I love that. I know in history, in school, I found history one of the most boring subjects ever. And I come from an area of Germany where loads of Roman monuments are everywhere. So everybody bangs on about the Romans endlessly. And I was so bored until I started doing Latin in school, and I was like, they went down the road saying this stuff to each other, and then it ties into your life. So I always feel like saying, what does it say to you about your life and keeping your streak going? It doesn't really actually say anything. Like it's superficial in the way. Like it's a decent language learning resource. It's doing a decent job at teaching your language, but it keeps you sort of almost artificially on the surface, and it doesn't really go to the heart. So my tip would be like, try and see if you can go to the heart. Like that kind of excitement. That's what we're here for. [00:35:05.550] - Mignon Fogarty Okay. Thank you. That helps. [00:35:09.230] - Kerstin Cable Okay, I have one last question for you, which is from Elle, from another podcaster, from the Speaking Tongues podcast. Elle interviews people who speakers and advocates of really incredible languages. She's from New York. So Elle was asking the Oxford commerce, love it or leave it, love it. [00:35:31.240] - Mignon Fogarty But will defend your right not to use it. That's a Hill I will die on. So I love the Oxford comma. I use it in my writing. I think it adds clarity, but it's a style choice. It is not a rule. And a lot of people were taught that it's a rule and they'll get all up in a sniff if they don't see it. They'll think it's done wrong. And AP Style, Associated Press style does not use the Oxford comma in simple sentences. And it's not wrong to leave it out. So, yeah, a big area of misconception is that it's a rule and it's just not. It's a style choice, but I prefer it. I love it. I use it myself. I think it adds clarity. So team Oxford comma with reservations. [00:36:15.830] - Kerstin Cable Excellent. That's the perfect answer. The perfect answer. Now, what would you like if you could change something about language, about either your personal language world or about the world in general and how we use and see languages? What would be the one thing that you would want to change? [00:36:35.490] - Mignon Fogarty Maybe if there were just subtitles everywhere, if you were walking, I don't know, an AI environment, like an augmented reality environment where if you were talking to someone, you could instantly see in subtitles in another language, that would be really fun. I love Google Translate. I traveled before and after Google Translate and it made such a difference having it available. And now imagine if it were in front of your eyes and instant and you didn't have to fiddle with your phone. I think that'd be really cool. [00:37:12.790] - Kerstin Cable And you were thinking of it as a foreign language. So I was in my head thinking, how cool would it be? Because I watched television in English with subtitles. I even watched television in German with subtitles. It helps me audio process. And I would love it if I could just walk down the road and if somebody said something like a funny local expression or somebody has a particular accent, if I got everybody subtitled, if that was just like the standard of life, like we're all subtitled. No elitism. There's no implication that someone is more comprehensible than another. It's just we're all subtitled and it's all kind of captured. [00:37:49.370] - Mignon Fogarty Yeah, I love it. [00:37:50.810] - Kerstin Cable That'd be so good. I love this. Okay. Now, I don't know whether you noticed, but on the show, when I have a guest, I sign off saying it's goodbye from me, goodbye. And then I ask my guests to say goodbye in any language of their choice. So you as an advocate of English, you're welcome to use English. You can try out your first Spanish public recording. Yes. Or whatever you would like to do. I think we're going to finish here then. I think listeners I didn't even say you can listen to Grandma Girls podcast and all that stuff because it's just like, yeah, you probably already know. But let me just say you can get books written by Mignon. I think she's written five. Is that right? [00:38:33.760] - Mignon Fogarty Seven, actually. [00:38:34.880] - Kerstin Cable What? She's written seven books. Just check your bookshelf, make sure she's on there. And she's written grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing. That was the first one and I read. Is this true? Do you know this that you bumped the secret off of the top spot? [00:38:52.030] - Mignon Fogarty Oh, I think I actually don't remember. My book was on the New York times bestseller list and I always joked that as going in my obituary because that is so cool. [00:39:06.050] - Kerstin Cable Yes, it was New York times bestseller. Amazing. And apparently just take this with you. I don't know where I read it but you bumped the secret that you manifested. [00:39:16.130] - Mignon Fogarty Cool. [00:39:17.230] - Kerstin Cable Yeah. How cool is that? You go girl. Yeah, I know. And you can listen to the grammar Girl podcast. What's the full name of your podcast? [00:39:29.030] - Mignon Fogarty Sure it's grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing but if you just search for grammar girl you'll find it excellent. [00:39:36.070] - Kerstin Cable Excellent. Someone actually thought about the title and the SEO not like just calling it the Fluent show and hoping somebody's going to find them. Some entrepreneurial thinking there. I love it. Grammar girls. Quick and dirty tips for better writing. You can get the podcast anywhere you listen to well, the Fluent show right now and you can also find Mignon's book. Mignon, thank you so, so much for the time and for being on The Fluent show. It was an honor having you as a guest and it was a lot of fun as well. And with that it is goodbye from me. Goodbye and it is goodbye from Minion Fogarty. [00:40:08.190] - Mignon Fogarty Adios. [00:40:10.490] - Kerstin Cable Thank you for listening to the Fluent show. If you enjoyed this episode, please support the show by subscribing for new episodes and leaving a rating and review in your podcast app. You can visit us at fluentlanguage.co.uk anytime. Don't forget that you can send us your questions and feedback to hello@ fluentlanguage.co.uk or you can find the show on Twitter and say hello over there. It's @thefluentshow and on Instagram it's #thefluentshow. We're always happy to hear from you and we read every message and review. See you next episode.