Red Pen: A Grammar Podcast
Welcome to the weird, wild, scintillatingly stylish, and syntactically sound world of RED PEN—the grammar podcast that won't put you to sleep.Brought to you by the Columbia Journalism Review and hosted by old buds Ryan Davis and Mike Laws, RED PEN plucks examples from the news (as well as from novels, music, movies—wherever!) to answer all those questions you were too afraid to ask in English class.Digressions may include: Green Day's early work, the oppressive atmosphere of latter-day Batman movies, and, of course, cats. Lots of cats.
- Update frequency
- every 10 days
- Average duration
- 44 minutes
- Episodes
- 36
- Years Active
- 2022 - 2024
What. The. F*ck.
Prepare to be scandalized. Oh, your stars!
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Find all your favorite Red Pen so…
Verily Varying Verbs
How to crack the attention economy? Coldcock your readers.
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Find all your fav…
BONUS: Red Pen at the Movies
Come for the critical reappraisal of ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ stay for Mike’s shocking revelation. Anon, good nurse!
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thi…
Odds’n’Sods
Oh, boy, are the “stick to the topic” ppl gonna love this one.
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Find all your…
Breaking the Laws
When, whether, and how often. With a little help from Humbert Humbert.
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Find…
Finest Points
Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love nuance.
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Find all your favorite …
Past, Perfect
You best believe we seen this trend.
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Find all your favorite Red Pen songs ov…
Top 5!
In which Mike finally reads the comments.
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Find all your favorite Red Pen son…
Ergative Zones
How Padma Lakshmi schooled us all on the "middle voice."
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Find all your favor…
Words We Love
And a few we hate. And, for some reason, a few that are German.
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Show Notes:
Source Code, Part I: Correcting the record
On the record, off the record, on background, deep background: What to expect when you're expecting to be a source.
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Th…
Make Up the Breakdown
It's an epidemic, people: one-word compound nouns standing in for phrasal verbs. Is Kelly Clarkson to blame?
Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you.
Thing 1: Ryan Davis
Thing 2: …
Season 1 Is a Wrap!
Being a podcast produced under the aegis of a university, Red Pen is about to make like the kiddies, ditching the books and reclining poolside for the summer. We'll be back after Labor Day, armed wit…
Pronouns: Now it's personal
Does English offer an ungendered third-person singular, and if so, who uses it? Everyone and their mother, as it turns out—going all the way back to the Middle Ages. Yinz gotta hear this one.
Question…
Seven Deadly Synesis
Ghastly puns aside, English is pretty agreeable in terms of agreement—but still presents some pitfalls when it comes to the alignment of grammatical number or person. Join us as we get into all that,…
What Pop Culture Taught Us
What do the musical Rent, the movie Seven, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, Kurt Cobain, and Lisa Simpson have in common? Why, they all imparted important, improbable vocab onto a young Ryan, Amanda, …
In the Mood for Subjunctives
The pluckiest conjugation in the English language; the tense that won't go gentle into that good night. Reports of its death have been… somewhat exaggerated. (Though if it weren't for country lyrics,…
Redundancy, redundancy
Unless you're that one guy from Goodfellas—or verses one and three of a classic pop song—it's probably not a great idea to repeat yourself. But are you doing it without realizing? Never fear: Ryan, M…
Appositively 4th Street
Restrictive or nonrestrictive, essential or non-: let's dispense with the terminology and ditch the reference manuals in favor of practical advice (namely on whether and when to use those damn commas…
Textiquette: The gloves come off (and so do the shoes)
The world's changing, and so are the rules for moving through it. But did New York magazine err in its recent guide to 21st-century etiquette? Join us as we hash out canceling plans the day of, blast…