What is your favorite grammar site?

If I didn't really like the contents, I would not recommend this site because the ads drive me crazy. But I am recommending it, so that means it is worth putting up with the ads (multiple versions of the same ad, in fact).

The site: Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips
by Mignon Fogarty

There are podcasts, a free newsletter, posts, and videos. Here are a few examples:


Grammar Girl's Top 10 Language Myths
by Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) at Grammar: Quick and Dirty Tips.
Grammar is often a dry subject, but Grammar Girl makes it interesting. Here's one of the myths she debunks:

You use “a” before words that start with consonants and “an” before words that start with vowels. Wrong! You use “a” before words that start with consonant sounds and “an” before words that start with vowel sounds. So, you'd write that someone has an MBA instead of a MBA, because even though “MBA” starts with “m,” which is a consonant, it starts with the sound of the vowel “e”--MBA.

What is interesting is that she get lots of comments and they are interesting themselves. A commenter named rpmason reminded me of a humorous moment from the past:

On an episode of Designing Women, the receptionist asked some classy women, "Where y'all from?" A classy woman replied, "Where we're from, we don't end a sentence with a preposition." To which Charlene replied, "Where y'all from, jerk*?" I still laugh 20 years later! *Not the actual term of endearment used.

I am really surprised that her readers/listeners would be such a feisty group.  Sometimes the comments are interesting for  the lack of intelligence of the writer, but more often, for interesting debate. Some are funny (to me)  because the commenter is arguing a serious grammatical point but there are grammatical and spelling errors in his/her comments. For example,jenny comments:

Joan, you are wrong and grammar girl is wright: i.e. does not mean "that is" in the sense that the following sentence will be a definition. It means "that is to say" or "in other words"

Sometimes the comments critique each other:

Comment from liarliar:

I couldn't decide between two well-qualified applicants for an accounting position. One sent an email asking "what kind of time frame am I looking at?" Proper or not, the sentence-ending preposition appeared unprofessional. Hope there’s another job out there she can look for.

This comment is followed-up by Misty's comments:

Umm... liarliar, you just ended that phrase with a preposition... You sound so unprofessional!

Podcasts are available on the site, as an RSS feed, or at ITunes.  Here's the link for ITunes.


What is your favorite grammar/word choice site?