Interview with Grammar Girl aka podcast star and grammar expert Mignon Fogarty

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Dave, I'm Rebecca, and I'm Birgit, and welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. So hi everybody and welcome back to this episode. Dave is on holiday today so we thought it would be nice to have a guest speaker and Birgit approached once again a podcasting superstar, Mignon Fogarty, who is with us today and we're kind of amazed by that. So welcome to our podcast. Oh, Rebecca, thank you so much and thank you for asking me, Birgit. So Birgit, can you explain how did you once again secure an amazing guest speaker? Okay, yes. Hello everybody. Yes, Mignon Fogarty is the grammar girl, not the grammar girl, she does a podcast. She's been doing that since 2007 and she's been announced five times winner for the best education podcast. So she's really experienced doing that. And I, of course, me as a grammar enthusiast, I came across her when we invited Ellen and Brand. You remember maybe we had an episode with the grammar table lady and I enquired and found out that Ellen and Brand had been on Mignon Fogarty's show. So that's when I came across the grammar girl and I thought, wow, grammar girl, what's that? So that took me by surprise and I was instantly interested and I approached Mignon and asked her, would you come on onto our show? And I'm so thrilled about, yeah, you have so many episodes, over a thousand on English language and that's what we share. We have in common the love for English language. And yeah, maybe you can tell us a little more about what you do, your background and how you came to do this grammar girl thing. And maybe one information which I found really fascinating, you were on the Oprah Winfrey show 2007. I mean, that's amazing. With the issue, possessive apostrophes. So please tell us a little about this. Yes. Who would have thought that Oprah would be interested in apostrophes? But yeah, I mean, I have always loved writing from when I was, you know, a young child, my mother would take me to the library for the little writing workshops to keep me entertained. So it's just something that I've always loved. I did end up getting a degree in English in college and then I took a big diversion. I ended up going into science. I was in a graduate programme in biology studying fruit fly genetics, but for a brief detour, but then I ended up as a science writer merging those two interests. And I was, you know, I was writing, you know, user manuals for DNA sequencers and white papers for researchers and things like that. So it wasn't very exciting, but I found that my clients, you know, I was doing editing work as well. And I found that my clients were making the same grammar errors over and over again. And this was when podcasting was new and I've always loved technology too. You know, my background also as a scientist. And so I became fascinated with podcasting and I kept talking about it and my dad was like, just stop talking about it and go do it. And so, yeah. And so I started, I initially I had a science podcast actually. Yeah, I know. I read that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did that for about eight months, but it was, it just wasn't working out. Back then it was very, it was much more difficult to do interviews actually. And so it was taking a huge amount of time. I had this setup where I plugged a device into my dial-up phone and, you know, it was eight different wires going, you know, it was, it was just a nightmare. Wow. It's really old school. Very. It was a nightmare. And so I would have given up. Yeah. Well, I did. So I was looking for a way I could, I had fallen in love with podcasting now. And so I was looking for a way I could keep podcasting without having to do the interviews. And I thought, well, I'm seeing these grammar errors every week. And often, you know, even though I had a degree in English, I wasn't taught which versus that, how to use a semicolon. You know, I was studying the symbolism of swords in Beowulf, you know, and I was expected to like learn all these other things on my own. And so I was frequently looking up all the little rules myself. And so I'm like, I'm already looking up the rules. I already know how to podcast. I'll just put out a little show, a quick and dirty tip, as my mom would say. And, you know, just five minutes every week with one of these tips. And I thought, you know, maybe, maybe someone would be interested. And I quickly found more people were interested than I had imagined. And that set me on the path of, you know, Grammar Girl becoming my full-time job for now. It's been 19 years. 19 years. Wow. Wow. That is amazing. That's really amazing. Yeah. Yes, it is. It was. So it was a self-discovery, this grammar. It wasn't something you were, I thought it was something you already had. So you were actually looking up these tips. You were finding all this stuff and then sharing it, basically. Yeah. You know, and often I was looking up, because I had different clients. And so I was looking, is this Chicago style or AP style? And there's so many differences between the different professional styles you have to use as a working writer. So, you know, do I put a serial comma here or not? You know, and so that's, I think that's why still today, often in my show, I'll be comparing styles. You know, I don't, I, you know, recognise like language in, I mean, there are rules, but a lot of times it's a little more squishy than people realise. And I like to lay out the different approaches and, and educate people on what the options are and then let them choose which is best for their work or school. I really like that approach and also the quick and dirty tips. So that means I read on your website. So that's easy. That's not too complicated. That's approachable. And that's a practical approach. That's exactly how I feel about teaching grammar and giving it to other people, igniting some fun. And also what you said, you, you noticed all the mistakes that were recurring. That was when I had my first idea to write a book because I thought I'm repeating myself. This is how, how the ideas come up to, to give it, to pass it on. Yes. Yes. And it should always be fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But fascinating is to, to me or maybe to Rebecca as well as a native. I mean, I, I know it's for a foreign speaker. It's difficult to learn a foreign language, but now you are in, you, you talk to your own people. I mean, that's, yeah, the native as if we would do that as for German. So I don't think we have, maybe it's because English is such a big language and the country is so big, the interest is so high. What do you think? Yeah. People are in general interested in language. I mean. Yeah. People are, they are surprisingly interested. You know, if I had known what strong opinions people have before I started, I'm not sure I ever would have started. Okay. But people are passionate about language. I mean, at least people, I don't know, people in, in English who speak English are, I almost would hope that people in other countries are not so religious about it. But then I know that I'm pretty sure German has a national language institute and I know like the France, the Academy, the French Academy. So it really does almost seem to be a universal thing that people feel very protective of their language and also very interested in it because, you know, we all use it every day and we grew up learning about it. And I think that, you know, we also, a lot of people were told they were wrong at some time and they invested a lot of energy in learning these small rules. And if they have learned the rules, they feel very proud of that. That's true. And so I find that, you know, people listen to the show because they're learning English. Absolutely. We published the transcript with every podcast. And so it's really nice for people to be able to listen and follow along with the words. I think that really helps people learn to be able to see the words and hear them at the same time. But I also hear from people who they like to listen just because I reinforce what they know. And they're like, yes, that rule. I know that. And I'm right. And, you know, I think we learned that from Ellen though, as well, because, you know, just the reactions that she was getting at this table. And we were like, no, who goes up and has a conversation about this? And so many people were so emotional. And so, you know, they were so involved in this discussions. And I think that's the same, isn't it? With the Germans, I think the Germans are quite interested in their own language. You know, if you can, you can talk to Germans as a, you know, as a me, as an English person who speaks German, you know, I had a neighbour in his eighties and he was fascinated by me speaking German and he was always giving me tips and when I would ask him, or do I say this or do I say that? And he was real kind of a linguist. And so there is that interest, but whether there would be enough for podcasts, I don't know. Probably. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of listeners do you have? Do you, can you say that? And is it like, because a thousand episodes on this subject, so have they changed? And how did you notice, okay, that it's growing? Obviously, you can see that, but so many subjects, so many issues. So you must have some feedback from your listeners. So. Yeah. So, you know, we can see some of our stats. So the listeners tend to be, I think a little older than the average podcast listener. So, you know, the 45 demographic, it's slightly more female than male, probably because of the name, Grammar Girl. It's about, if I remember correctly, I think it's about 65 or 70% in the United States. And then, you know, the UK, you know, all the other English speaking countries are next, but I'm big in Brazil. That's one of the top. And in India. We are too, actually. I don't know why. That's one of our top places, Brazil. Yeah. Germany. Yeah. Yeah. Brazilians must listen to a lot of podcasts. And I know that people who are learning English in Brazil listen. A wonderful school teacher sent me a picture of his class of, you know, it must've been 40 students or so. And they had handmade t-shirts that said, I heart Grammar Girl. Sometimes I just look at it to cheer myself up. That's so cute. I'm wearing a big Ellen's t-shirt. I was going to say, do you have one of those who are big at Grammar? Yeah, I love Grammar. I have a I love Grammar t-shirt on, of course. Sorry, I can't do that. That's so nice. That's really nice feedback to see that, right? It was wonderful. But I mean, I hear from truckers who listen, you know, truckers have a lot of time to listen to podcasts. Oh, truckers, wow. And, you know, a lot of people say, you know, someone at work suggested I listen. So people who, you know, want to brush up on their English for a work related reason, you know, I think that there are people in offices who listen. So the big question I know we could talk about for an hour is, is AI destroying the need for all of this? You know, do we need, because you just ask ChatGPT, please write this for me, and off it goes. So, you know, learning grammar rules, learning all this stuff, what effect is this going to have? How is this going to evolve? What's your thoughts? It is fascinating. I could talk about it for an hour. I think, you know, I remember I had them, I think everyone had a moment where they they used ChatGPT and it did something that surprised them. And then you sit there and you stare out the window for a minute. What does this mean? Looking into the middle distance, pondering your life. And, you know, it does it, it spits seems to spit out grammatically perfect text. You know, it's not brilliant. It's not poetic. It's, you know, it's lacking a lot of things, but it does get the grammar right. In fact, I had a funny thing happen yesterday because I posted an analysis on LinkedIn. So I don't use AI to write, but I am very interested in what it can do. And so I did a test to see if it could mimic my style. So I feel it's very important to understand this technology and what it can do and how it works. So I tried to train it in my style. I gave it a bunch of podcast scripts and I worked with it and had it develop, you know, a style guide. And then I gave it some information. And this was when ChatGPT 5 came out. So I compared the old version to the new version and said, is it any better than when I tested it, you know, like a year ago? And it was better. Still wasn't anything I would use, you know, still not to the level of what I think would be something of a high enough quality to use. But I had given it a starting paragraph. So I was like, here's my style. Here's the first paragraph of the piece. Now just go from here. And someone pointed out, I actually had a grammar error in my starting paragraph that I hadn't noticed. So one of my lists I had wasn't parallel. And she was like, I'm surprised that it didn't fix this. And I said, well, I didn't ask it to fix that. You know, so I'm not terribly surprised, but I bet it never would have generated that error on its own. I bet it would have written a parallel list because it generally does. And so I just thought that was fascinating, actually. So there's like what we do well and what it does well. And I do ask myself, like, do people need to learn how to use a semicolon anymore? Do they need to learn, you know, the difference between homophones? I feel that it's important for us to know those things. But is it as essential as it used to be? Like children, they still learn to add and subtract even though they have calculators. So I think we can, but we're making now when we're making the argument, we're making a much more philosophical argument than a practical argument, given that even if you write your own material, which I hope people still will do because writing is also thinking, you can clean it up in an instant, you know? And so, yeah, so it's a fascinating question that I think is going to affect all of us. So do you think this is going to affect, you know, does grammar evolve and is it going to not evolve if everyone's using AI because they're all following the same rules and everybody gets it right? So, or is it a growing thing? Is grammar still going to grow? Does it grow? What's your opinion on that? I think it still will because of social media and people speaking in real life, you know, I mean, and teens, you know, teens are where a lot of language innovation comes from and they will rebel against AI and they'll still be with their friends making up words based on slang and video games and sports and music and all the things that are so creative that we value. But there have already been studies showing that in some instances, people are starting to speak and write like AI. So, you know, there was a study of scientists, someone looked at, I think it was 10,000 science YouTube channels and podcasts, and they found that after ChatGPT came out in, I think it was 2023, that, or maybe 2022, but whenever, after it came out, the scientists started talking more like ChatGPT. They used the word, they used the words like delve and meticulous and the things that, especially in those early days, were part of the language that ChatGPT was using. And so maybe some of them had been using AI to write their scripts, but they also found this in interview shows in where people were just seemed to be speaking contemporaneously. So, you know, it's influenced, I think it's influencing people. And I think it is changing the way people talk and write and probably think about language. And it's, it has this levelling effect because it, it's, it's the same. You know, if all three of us put something in and say, write an essay for me, they're going to sound very similar. But if we went off and wrote our own essays, they would, they would sound very different because we all have our language quirks. Yeah. And I think, you see, maybe this is a chance in the long run, you never know that people might come back to the original style once we've all used that AI stuff. And it's good to have, maybe then people can say, okay, that's the Grammar Girls podcast or something. I know you talked about this, young people and how AI changes languages and new words coming. I listened to your episode and how people change when, when they enter different stages, your latest episode, obviously fascinating. So everything has an effect on how we talk, obviously. And maybe you never know in 10 years when we get so fed up and so used to everything sounding the same or similar, we might then come back to thinking, oh, no, we want to be different. I don't know. I think so. I think that, that people are going to value having a strong voice more. I think people are going to end up valuing creativity more, valuing that more and craving that human connection. You know, I think we appreciate that at work. It helps. I think a lot of people appreciate that at work. It helps them sound more professional, but I think in a lot of other kinds of writing and even in work, you want to feel like you're interacting with a human who has taken some time and thought into the message. I think this is also so, you know, for our listeners, people who are learning English, you know, so of course there's the question or what's the point, you know, do I need to learn a language anymore because I can use AI to write stuff for me in a foreign language and there's going to be these headsets there already are where you can speak and it's simultaneously translating, which is just mind blowing. But where's the human connection? And this is my point. I think with languages, especially with foreign languages, for me, there is a reason to still learn because that human connection, are you really going to have the same conversation? Are you going to rely on a machine that maybe translates exactly what you're saying, but maybe doesn't or maybe gets it slightly or doesn't even reflect the style of you as a person. It's not authentic. It's not showing your authenticity. So I think it is still important. Yeah, I took a trip to two trips to South America before and after Google Translate was available. And the first time it was so frustrating because I needed to buy cold medicine and I couldn't, I could not communicate what I needed. And then the second trip, I had Google Translate and I was talking to my cab driver and it was better. It was much better. But still, I wished that I could have just had a conversation face-to-face without the technological intermediary. Yeah, that's your touch. Yeah, I wouldn't enjoy, I mean, an avatar is so much nicer to have you here in person and you're real rather than talking to an avatar. There's a TV show here, it's called 90 Days to the Altar, it's trashy TV, where these people come to the States and they have this green card and they have to get married within 90 days and they're often foreign. And sometimes they don't speak each other's language. So they don't speak English and the American people don't speak whatever language it is. And there's a few couples and they communicate completely their whole relationship through their phone. So she will say something into her phone, Brazilian, Portuguese, and then they will answer. And it's a brilliant example of how sometimes it really does not work. And they'll be throwing the phones at each other. They get so angry because the phone is not doing it's like understanding what I want to say. So I think it will improve and it will get better. And I totally agree, like in Japan, being able to just, you know, you need to do something and it's just there and it just makes the whole experience so much easier. But there is still something to be said for learning the language and communicating properly, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I still want to learn. Do you speak languages, foreign languages? Oh, I try. So I took German in high school. I did. Yeah. Yeah. But I am not conversant at all. I'm not even probably at the level of a two-year-old. I just started doing Duolingo again to try to relearn, you know, relearn. And I've been trying to learn Spanish for a long time. I was so proud of myself the other day. I was able to have, again, like a kindergarten level conversation with my gardener who, you know, but yeah, I think that is so. Yeah. And I was. Yeah. And I mean, that is like the human connection. I could have pulled out the Google Translate, but I tried and he seemed to appreciate it. And we, we determined we understood each other enough. But I love learning languages. But I think unless you practise with a real person, you're just never going to get to the point where you're conversant, you know, no matter how many exercises you do. So on that point, do you think thinking about the grammar? So how important is grammar, would you say? Because obviously our listeners, they, there's people like Birgit who love their grammar and there's others who get, so is it important or is it what kind of importance does it have, do you think? Yeah. I mean, when I took, when I took German in high school, that was really when I learned grammar. And so many people say that, you know, that I didn't really learn grammar until I, I learned a foreign language. You know, the way it's taught now in the apps that I have used, there isn't a focus on grammar really at all. And I think maybe there's a middle ground somewhere. I feel like I'd like a little bit more grammar, a little bit more understanding of why this goes here or why that's inflected the way it is. And instead of trying to just intuit it from the example sentences. So I do think it helps. I do. Thank you. That's very good for what I'm really trying to teach. Yeah, because people come and approach me and say, oh, I'm lacking vocabulary. I can't speak English. And then I find out quickly. So it's the grammatical structure they're not sure about very often. But as I said before, grammar doesn't seem to be sexy and, oh, grammar, oh, that's boring. This is so why I'm so happy to have found people out there who really do talk about grammar, English grammar. Yeah. I mean, I think if you really want to learn a language, it matters. I think if you're, you know, want to learn 10 phrases so you can get by in an emergency on a vacation, you don't need to learn it. And there are programmes that are like that too. But I think if you really want to learn a language, it helps to understand the grammar. Wonderful. And in the school system, for example, you're in the States. So what's the approach to grammar? Do you know how is grammar taught in school? Is it only like, like you said, you learn when you learn a foreign language or how does that work? Yeah, that pretty much seems to be, I will say that I don't have children and I, it's been a long time since I've been, you know, in a grade school. But, you know, people, people tell me I hear complaints that they don't teach grammar in school anymore. You know, I hear that from listeners. So I think it's, it's not widely taught. It's probably touched on, but many people say they only learn grammar when they take a foreign language. There's one thing I did with language learning recently that I don't know if you want to share it or not, but I thought it was interesting and because there are times when I feel like AI can be helpful too. And learning a language, I've always felt like songs really help with memory. You know, when I took German in high school, I still remember a folk song my teacher used. I still remember. Because it was a song and, you know, like in my dreams it comes to me. So I feel strongly that songs are really useful. And so I recently used AI to make a song with the Spanish words that I've been having trouble remembering. And then I'm not finished, but I'm like making a video that I'm transcribing the captions. So it has both the English and the Spanish. And, you know, I think that could be really helpful, like a personalised way of getting a song to reinforce, you know, things you're trying to remember. Absolutely. Birgit, you were just explaining, Birgit's been making stories with her Dutch words, right? Using AI. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My Dutch teacher did that. Thanks to Rick. Yeah. And yeah, personalising the vocabulary, using it with AI, but with a song, I haven't thought of that. Wonderful idea. Yeah. Yeah. So I made up a pop song instead of a folk song, you know, so something I can, you know, do aerobics to while learning Spanish. Or rap or something, whatever. Thanks for this idea. Nice. Yeah. Nice idea. Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's been really nice to have you on the programme. Nice on the episode. And what's next for you? What's on your plan? Or where is the Grammar Girl going in the rest of 2025? Yeah. Well, it was wonderful to meet you first. Thank you for having me on. You know, you can find me, I'm on most social media as some form of Grammar Girl. And, you know, the podcast is, you know, the primary thing I do. So on Tuesdays, I do a scripted show and on Thursdays, I do interviews. So I'm now doing two different kinds of shows. That's kind of a new thing. So, but we always have the transcript, which I think is great for language learners. So, yeah. And stuff with people from Germany also are mostly American. So from your own or England or from all over the world. So I don't think... My guests, yeah, they are mostly American, but I have had, I've definitely had people from, you know, England, you know, I have had people from other countries. It's really just, you know, if you have an interest, people have an interesting book about language or something like that, or linguists, I love talking to linguists and lexicographers. So yeah, people who work in language. Well, thank you so much for... Thank you so much. You bet. Danke. Wir haben so dank. And yeah, enjoy the rest of your day in California. Thank you. Thank you. You too. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you so much for pressing late today. If you enjoy our podcast, please share with your friends, your family or your co-workers. Or you can also support us by giving us a thumbs up or a star rating or a review on whatever podcast platform you are using to listen to us. For questions and comments, you can also head over to our website, 3englishexperts.com. Thank you so much for listening. 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