Grammar girl here. I'm in Yon Fog Fog and

regular listeners know we talk about writing history rolled and

cool stuff and today we have some history, British

military word history to be exact. My guest is Ben Yagoda who taught writing

in journalism at the University of Delaware for 25 years and is written about

language for many, many publications including Slate, Rolling Stone, the New York Times Book

Review, and in the Chronicle of Higher Education blog, Lingua Franca.

You've heard his pieces on Grammar Girl before, but he's here today to help us talk about military

words for Veterans Day, particularly words we get from the British military,

because he has our long-running blog called Not One Off Britishisms, about words that make the transition from British English to American English.

And he has a book coming out in the fall of 2024 called Gobsmacked, The British Invasion of American English.

And that book has a section on military slang. Hi Ben,

Thanks for being here with me today.

A minion, it's my great pleasure.

Great to see you.

You too.

So, before we jump in to the words, wonderful word, I'd love to hear how you got

parted with your passion, your blog of looking at words that have come into American English from British English.

Yeah, it's been a very long standing project. I think, well first of all, I've always been interested in language and words as you can

relate to I'm sure and I that I noticed I notice language I words, big things, little things, all sorts of things, and I recently

retired, or some few years ago retired as a professor of English at the University of Delaware.

And in that capacity, I was the professor for some study abroad trips specifically to London.

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