Hopefully

What’s the Trouble with 'Hopefully'?

For centuries, the word “hopefully” meant “in a hopeful manner.” For example, the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in his essay “El Dorado,” “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,” meaning that enjoying the journey, traveling with a hopeful disposition, is better than getting to your destination.

“Hopefully” plays the role of an adverb in that sentence. It’s modifying the verb “travel” the same way adverbs like “quickly” or “frugally” would. You could travel quickly, travel frugally, or travel hopefully. Traveling hopefully sounds like more fun.

But words can take on new uses over time, and in the 1960s, people started using “hopefully” to mean “I hope” or “we hope,” as in “Hopefully, we’ll get to go on vacation this year.” It became trendy.

Sentence Adverbs

In that sentence, “hopefully” is playing the role of sentence adverb. “Hopefully” means “I am hopeful that we’ll get to go on vacation this year.” In that kind of sentence, “hopefully’ is just like the sentence adverbs  “thankfully,” “mercifully,” and “fortunately.” You see, adverbs modify verbs, but they can also modify other adverbs or, as they do in this case, whole sentences. “Hopefully, we’ll get to go on a vacation this year,” is just like “Thankfully, we’ll get to go on a vacation this year,” and “Fortunately, we’ll get to go on a vacation this year.”

The weight of opinion accepts the modified definition of 'hopefully.'

The American Heritage Dictionary has useful entries called “usage notes” that tell you when a word is controversial, and they note that people are illogical in their objection to “hopefully” being used as a sentence adverb. They do usage surveys, and they find that people aren’t bothered by sentence adverbs in general—very few people object to “mercifully” being used as a sentence adverb, for example—people object only to “hopefully” being a sentence adverb. It seems to be special, in a bad way, and the only explanation American Heritage can muster is that people didn’t like “hopefully” at first because it was trendy, and then even after the trendiness wore off and “hopefully” became ubiquitous in...

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The Quirky Australian Present Perfect Tense

A listener named Milton asked why Australians use the present perfect tense for the past tense. For example, he said Australians would say, “He has skulked,” instead of “He skulked.” That’s the present perfect tense: the verb “has” or “have” combined with the past participle: “has skulked.” And somewhat confusingly, even though it’s called the “present perfect” tense, it’s usually used to talk about something that happened at an unspecified time in the past.

I’ve spent significant time with a few Australians over the years—my lab mate in grad school was from Adelaide, and a good friend is married to a man from Sydney and we all worked together at a startup—but I had never noticed them doing what Milton described, so I knew I had to look into this more.

First, although you’ll find some sources on the internet that say it’s a myth that Australians talk this way, papers published in the “Australian Journal of Linguistics” by Dulcie Engel and Maria-Eve Ritz in 2000 and in the journal “Linguistics” in 2008 found that Australians do use the present prefect tense in more situations than people from other English speaking countries.

Americans and the British Use Present Perfect Tense Differently

Let’s look at the data about British English and American English first. Americans are much less likely to use the present perfect tense than the British. 

We just don’t seem to say it. For example, a 1974 book by Frank Palmer called “The English Verb” said that while the British would use the present perfect tense and ask before dinner, “Have you washed your hands?” an American was much more likely to use the simple past and ask, “Did you wash your hands?”

A database of spoken American English didn't have any instances of people using the present perfect tense.

In fact, researchers trying to study the use of the present perfect tense in speech had to rely solely on British examples because their database of spoken American English didn’t have any examples. And according to Engel and Ritz, many other studies have also found this difference between British English and American English. 

So people in these two countries use the present perfect tense differently. What else do we know?

The Present Perfect Tense...

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How to Handle Negative Self-Talk on a Date

Here's the problem with dating: You don't usually know the other person so well. So you have no idea what they’re really thinking.  If you’re at all self-conscious, it’s easy to assume the worst.

Today I’m going to show you some really useful techniques for keeping your cool on a date. But first, let me tell you a story. It's one I got from Dr. Aaron Beck, an elder statesman in the mental health field, and the father of what’s now called cognitive therapy. 

A Classic Example of Negative Self-Talk

This story involves a young woman Dr. Beck treated when he was just starting in practice sixty years ago, way back in the 1950’s.

She happened to be quite sexually adventurous and slept with a lot of men. Given that this was the 1950’s, that raised a lot more eyebrows than it would today. She’d often fill the sessions with vivid descriptions of her most recent sexual encounters.

At the end of one such session, Beck thought to ask her how she was feeling. She said she was feeling very anxious. Beck suggested that maybe she felt anxious about telling him all this intimate stuff.

“Actually,” she said, “I was afraid I was boring you.”

It turned out the main reason she’d been filling the hour with all these sexy stories was because otherwise she was pretty sure he’d think she was very boring. It didn’t matter whether she was on a date, or in therapy, or anywhere else. The thought, “I’m a boring person” was never far from her mind.

Now negative self-talk really works

We humans seem to have a natural tendency to assume the worst about ourselves. Negative self-talk just seems to be in our DNA.

Once Dr Beck recognized this, he went on to found a whole school of therapy—cognitive therapy. It's centered around something called Automatic Negative Thoughts and how to change them so they don’t cause so much trouble.

Automatic Negative Thoughts makes a great  acronym—ANTs. ANTs can ruin a good date just like real ants can spoil a picnic.

Negative self-talk just seems to be in our DNA.

ANTs don’t come with labels attached that say, “This is an ANT.”  Instead, they usually come with labels that say, “This is REALITY.”  That can be pretty scary.

The first thing is to remember what Dorothy’s dog Toto did in The Wizard of Oz. He pulled back the curtain revealing that The Great and Powerful Oz was not in fact a wizard at all, but just a little guy pulling levers and speaking into a microphone.

In other words, not reality, but just an ANT playing at being reality.

Recognizing negative self-...

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5 Fresh Ways to Throw Your Child's Next Birthday Bash

Planning a kid’s birthday party can be so much fun, but at the same time it can be a bit daunting. Especially if you’re running out of inspired ideas or trying not to kill your budget.

Does your party idea bank need to be replenished? Here are five creative twists that will add some fun and pizazz to your family birthday celebrations this year.

1. Bake it special

In our home, baking homemade goodies has always been the norm. There's nothing like spending an afternoon together in the kitchen. With a mixing bowl, yummy ingredients, and messy hands, we would concoct, decorate, and then devour our lovingly made treats.

Not every recipe we tried was a success, but we were able to spend so much fun time together trying to whip up a new masterpiece.

Several years ago, my youngest daughter was hooked on the Food Network show, Cake Wars. We would watch every new show and make notes about the many new delectable creations we wanted to recreate. Not every recipe we tried was a success, but we were able to spend so much fun time together trying to whip up a new masterpiece.

Because of that show, my daughter wanted to have a birthday party where she and her friends got to get super creative and decorate their own cakes. We called it Annie’s Birthday Bake-off. Five years later, it's still one of her favorite birthday party memories.

HERE'S HOW

Purchase chef’s hats to make it feel like the real thing. You can pre-decorate with each guest’s name in advance in fun, funky lettering.

Create a personalized workstation for each child with a foam placemat they can decorate. We found our placemats at Dollar Tree. I also found fun and whimsical stickers, paper cut-outs and die cuts, and even sparkling confetti that each child loved adding to their decorating hubs.

Depending on the age group of your party-goers, you can choose to take your bake-off in two different directions.

Older Kids (ages 8 – 15) 

Let them bake their own cakes and decorate. Use packaged cake mix to keep it simple. This approach works best if you have a small number of guests (4 – 5 kids) because you will need to have enough baking pans and supplies on hand. Keep in mind that when the cakes are cooling, you’ll need to have another activity to keep them entertained before the decorating fun can begin.

Younger kids (ages 4 – 7)

Use baked and pre-frosted cakes. You can either purchase them or bake them yourself.

Now the real fun begins. Each child gets to decorate their...

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5 Research Paper Mistakes to Avoid This Fall

Writing a research paper is a daunting task, and the stakes can be high if a big part of your semester grade is counting on this assignment. Writing a research paper, however, doesn’t have to be a stress-inducing endeavor. If you take the time to select the right topic, take sufficient notes during the research phase, and implement a solid structure within your paper, you can set yourself up for a successful assignment.

Keep reading to learn five research paper mistakes to avoid this fall. 

Research Paper Mistake #1: Choosing the Wrong Topic

What’s right or wrong is somewhat subjective, but there are a few guidelines that can steer you in the right direction when selecting a topic. While you need to make sure your topic fits the scope of what you’ve been assigned, be sure to think about whether your intended topic is too broad or too narrow. You want something that is focused so you can target your research to sources that are the most relevant to your topic. However, getting too focused may make it difficult to find enough applicable sources. The key is to find a middle ground—a topic that still has unanswered questions and needs to be explored, yet is broad enough to give context to your research.

The key is to find a middle ground—a topic that still has unanswered questions and needs to be explored, yet is broad enough to give context to your research.

Research Paper Mistake #2: Taking Insufficient Notes During your Research 

Before you can write your paper, you’ll need to read and analyze many primary and secondary sources. Make sure to take detailed notes about the information you get from each source. This will be helpful not only as you write your paper, but it will also keep you from having to go back to the original sources multiple times. One tip is to categorize information from each source on an individual notecard, which you can then organize into concepts or categories when you start outlining your paper. 

Research Paper Mistake #3: Not Implementing a Clear Structure

The structure of...

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Does Social Media Cause Depression? It's Complicated

Is there a link between social media and depression? Do Facebook and Instagram have a negative impact on your mental health? It's complicated.

Sometimes, scrolling through Instagram just makes you feel bad. You try not to envy your friends, but they always seem to be traveling somewhere cool, eating something fancy, or looking cute in perfect just-rolled-out-of-bed hair.

On the other hand, there are times when you laugh at funny memes, catch up with old friends, and feel happy to belong to fun social media communities. Clearly, social media isn't all bad.

Does social media cause depression? Is it bad for your mental health?

People are increasingly opinionated about the potential problems of social media. Things like cyberbullying, screen addiction, and being exposed to endless filtered images that make it impossible not to make comparisons between yourself and others often make the news.

In July, a big study came out in the uber-prestigious journal JAMA. It was titled "Association of Screen Time and Depression in Adolescence." This big headline seemed to confirm what a lot of people have been saying—that screen time is horrible for young people.

What exactly is the relationship between social media use and depression? It turns out there are several caveats.

The study followed over 3800 adolescents over four years as part of a drug and alcohol prevention program. Part of what the investigators measured was the teens' amount of screen time, including time spent on social media, as well as their levels of depression symptoms. One of their main findings was that higher amounts of social media use were associated with higher levels of depression. That was true both when the researches compared between people and compared each person against their own mental health over time.

Case closed? Not so fast. Before we end the debate once and for all, let's take a closer look at this and other studies. Let's ask ourselves: What exactly is the relationship between social media use and depression? It turns out there are several caveats.

Caveat #1: The association between social media use and depression is, on average, tiny.

In this big JAMA study, the investigators compared social media use and depression between teens and found that those who used social media more had higher depression scores. Specifically, for every hour per day that one teen spent on social media more than her peers, she likely had a...

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Why Do We Call Coffee ‘a Cup of Joe’?

September 29 is National Coffee Day. So raise your mug and take a sip because today we’re looking at some of the weird words we use to talk about coffee.

‘Coffee’ Comes From the Turkish Word ‘Kahveh’

Let’s start with the word “coffee” itself. It comes from the Turkish word “kahveh,” and it seems to have come into European languages around 1600. (6) That’s because coffee beans were first brought from North Africa and the Middle East into Italy in 1615, and then into France in 1644. There, the Turkish ambassador to France, Suleiman Aga, helped to make coffee the “it” beverage in the court of Louis XIV. (4)

The European aristocracy became enchanted by the thick, hot beverage. And the rest, as they say, is history. 

Back then, the word “coffee” appeared in a lot of different forms: chaona, cahve, kauhi, cahu, coffa, and caffa. Eventually, these all settled down into the “coffee” we know today. (6)

Battery Acid, Crumb Coffee, and Unicorn Frappuccinos

Over time, we’ve come to know “coffee” by a bunch of different terms. We’ve called bad or poorly made coffee “battery acid,” “belly wash,” and “sludge.” (4) And a certain brand’s coffee is sometimes called “charbucks” by those don’t appreciate really dark-roasted coffee.

We’ve called fake coffee “Boston coffee,” “Canadian coffee,” and “crumb coffee.”

We’ve called fake coffee “Boston coffee,” “Canadian coffee,” and “crumb coffee.” These so-called coffees were made in the U.S. after the Revolutionary War, when Americans were abstaining from tea because of high British taxes – yet also suffering from high coffee prices. These three coffee substitutes were made, respectively, from rye, peas, and burnt bread. (4)

I can’t really imagine how they would have tasted.

Today, we often refer to coffee by the way it’s made: drip coffee, press coffee, moka pot coffee, instant coffee, and siphon coffee, for example. (3)

Americans have borrowed the British expression “a cuppa,” referring to a cup of tea, and now use it willy-nilly to refer to a cup of coffee. (5)

And of course, we have all the made-up names for coffee we could ever want, courtesy of today’s gourmet coffee shops: unicorn frappucinos and caramel flan machiatos are just two of many. 

Why Do We Call Coffee a ‘Cup of Joe’? 

One of the most common ways we’ve referred to coffee in the past century is to...

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7 Easy Ways to Use Less Water Around the House

How Fixtures Can Save You Big on Water Usage

The easiest way to lower your water usage (and utility bill) is to screw low-flow aerators into your sink’s faucets. Aerators are easy to install, cost $5 or less, and can save you $50 or more per year. If the showerheads in your home were installed before 1994, you should seriously consider replacing them with their modern, energy-saving equivalents. Check out your local hardware store for low-flow alternatives, and remember that just because it’s low-flow doesn’t mean it has to be weak!

How to Use Less Water on Your Lawn

Have you ever set the sprinkler on the lawn and forgotten it was there? Purchasing a water timer will take care of that problem for you. Available at your local hardware store, these hose attachments work like egg timers and turn off the water supply after the amount of time you specify, usually between 10 minutes and two hours. It's a minimal investment with a worthwhile return!

Make Sure Your Toilet Doesn’t Leak

Does your toilet tank leak into the bowl after each flush? If it does, you could be wasting up to 73,000 gallons of water per year! To find out, put a drop of food coloring in the tank when it’s done flushing and see if it shows up in the bowl. If you see the color in the bowl, check out how to fix a toilet tank leak.

Savings with Each Flush

If you don’t have a modern, water-saving toilet, a great way to save water is to fill a plastic bottle or two with sand and put them in your toilet tank. You’ll use a lot less water with each flush. Just make sure you place them away from the operating mechanism. Also, don’t use bricks—they disintegrate and can damage your toilet.

Save Water During Each Shower

We’ve already shared with you some easy ways you can heat less water to lower your water bill. But what about the time spent waiting for the water to heat up? Keep a bucket in your shower to use to collect cold water as the shower is heating up. Then, use it to water plants, soak stained clothes, or other jobs that you don’t need warm water for. Meanwhile, quit fiddling with the knobs on your shower to find where you want it before it gets hot. Find your favorite setting, then mark where the knob is pointing on the tile with a dab of nail polish or a waterproof marker. This water-preserving trick is great for kids, who often take a...

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‘Smokey’ or ‘Smoky’?

We’re now solidly into fall, and in the western United States, where I live, we’ve had horrible smoky summers for the last few years because of forest fires. But this year wasn’t so bad, and I’m feeling a little less worried now that the temperatures are getting colder. And feeling grateful for getting a reprieve from a smoky summer this year got me thinking about the word “smoky.”

Between Smokey Robinson, Smokey Bear, and the movie “Smokey and the Bandit,” which are all spelled with an E, you can be forgiven for thinking the correct spelling for the smell of burned wood is “smokey,” but it’s not. The correct spelling is "smoky" (with no E).

The correct spelling for the smell of burned wood is 'smoky.'

The confusion is largely Smokey Bear’s fault. The poor guy has more important things to worry about—like preventing forest fires—but when the U.S. Forest Service gave the cartoon bear his name in 1944, they spelled it with an E to make it different from the word “smoky,” and all the bear’s time in the limelight led to spelling confusion. 

Then, in the mid-1970s, truckers started calling police officers Smokey Bear or just Smokey because state trooper hats looked a lot like the hat worn by our fire fighting friend, Smokey Bear. The smokey in the movie “Smokey and the Bandit” was a Texas county sheriff named Buford T. Justice, played by Jackie Gleason. 

When “smokey” is a nickname for an officer of the law, it’s spelled S-M-O-K-E-Y, with an E, but otherwise, drop the E.

When 'smokey' is a nickname for an officer of the law, it's spelled with an E.

Here’s a Quick and Dirty Tip to remember that a policeman or ranger’s nickname is “Smokey,” with an E: Think of officers as keeping their eyes on you—eyes, a word with two E’s.

Think of officers as keeping their eyes on you—eyes, a word with two E’s.

Examples of 'Smokey' and 'Smoky'

Tina: [concerned about a sniper outside] But what happens if he hits the gas tank?

Matt Helm: Smokey the Bear won’t like it. Get in.

— Daliah Lavi playing Tina and Dean Martin playing Matt Helm in the movie "...

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5 Ways to Cut Household Expenses and Save Money

Do you think it’s impossible to cut everyday expenses, or that it’s not worth the hassle? Time to change your thinking! There are many ways to save money by spending less without having to make significant sacrifices.

In this post, I’ll cover five ways to cut the cost of items you’re already buying. Then you can use the savings for your financial goals, such as building an emergency fund and investing for retirement. 

If you listen to the companion podcast (using the embedded audio player above or on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify) you’ll also hear a clip from my guest appearance on the first episode of The Save Space podcast. I had a blast chatting with host Kelly Sutton about a variety of tips, including managing household expenses, saving more, dealing with financial hardships, and creating emergency documents to protect you and your loved ones.

5 Tips to Cut Expenses and Save Money

1. Research and shop online.
2. Buy pre-owned clothing.
3. Enroll in subscription services.
4. Use grocery delivery services.
5. Shop farmers' markets.

Here’s more detail about these clever ways to put more money in the bank.

1. Research and shop online

If you love shopping at local stores, consider how shopping online can help you pay less. One is that it’s much easier to research and compare prices and discounts at different merchants. You also don’t have as many distractions as when you wander around a brick and mortar store.

Online shopping also saves a ton of time and hassle. You don’t have to deal with traffic, parking, or long checkout lines. Many retailers offer free shipping, so you don’t even pay for the convenience of having items dropped at your front door.  

It’s much easier to research and compare prices and discounts at different merchants.

But before you hit the “buy” button, always look for ways to save even more. Check out Rakuten (formerly called Ebates), which is an incredibly easy and free way to save even more.

Once you visit Rakuten, search for the store you want to shop and click through. If you make a purchase, they get a commission from thousands of top online stores and share it with...

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Iron Deficiency and Hair Loss

A small amount of hair collecting in the shower drain or hairbrush is not necessarily cause for concern. According to the Academy of Dermatology, it's perfectly normal to lose 100 or so hairs from your head every day.

Gradually thinning hair as you age is also normal, and largely hereditary. But hair loss—especially when it's sudden or at a young age—can also be a sign of certain medical conditions or nutrient deficiencies.

In these cases, identifying and correcting the problem can often reverse your hair loss. But the sudden onset of thinning hair is not the time for self-diagnosis or treatment. Guessing wrong and treating a problem that doesn't exist not only won't help; it may actually make the problem worse!

What causes thinning hair?

Two of the most common non-hereditary causes of hair loss are low thyroid function and iron deficiency. Both are relatively common, especially in women. And although they are two completely different conditions, they share some of the same symptoms. In addition to hair loss, fatigue and cold hands and feet can be signs of both low thyroid and iron deficiency. These conditions are readily diagnosed with a simple blood test. They can be easily corrected, either with replacement thyroid hormones or iron supplements.

Two of the most common non-hereditary causes of hair loss are low thyroid function and iron deficiency.

If you suspect you might be low in iron, ask your doctor to confirm your suspicions before taking any iron supplements. Taking an over-the-counter iron supplement if you don't have an iron deficiency is potentially harmful.

If it turns out you're not low in iron, it's time to connect with your doctor and keep looking for other possible explanations for your symptoms.

If you are iron deficient, your doctor will likely want to recheck your levels after a few weeks of supplementation. If the iron supplements don't seem to be helping, work with your doctor to explore and rule out less common causes of iron deficiency.

How much iron do I need?

Although it's not a good idea to take iron supplements unless you know you need them, it is a good idea to make sure your diet contains enough iron to meet your needs. Here are the recommended daily allowances for various groups:

• Adolescent girls: 15 mg per day
• Adolescent boys: 11 mg per day
• Adult men and post-menopausal women: 8 mg per day
• Menstruating women: 18 mg per day
• Pregnant women: 27 mg per day

The three groups that are most likely to fall short are adolescent girls and premenopausal or pregnant women.

What to eat to get more iron...

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15 Secret Ingredients and Substitutions

Whether you're unprepared or just plain curious, read on to find some suprising swaps and combinations.

For Sweets & Baking

1. DIY Brown Sugar
Out of brown sugar but the recipe calls for it? You can make your own if you have white sugar and molasses. Simply mix in a bowl with a fork (or in a mixer) 1 tablespoon molasses per 1 cup granulated sugar for light brown sugar and 2 tablespoons molasses per 1 cup sugar for dark. Keep mixing until the molasses is fully incorporated—it may not look like it’s happening at first, but keep the faith and fork stirring!

2. No Need for Heavy Cream
Making whipped cream? Save a trip to the store! Heavy cream isn’t something we all keep in our fridge stock. You’re more likely to have light cream, which can work perfectly fine for whipped cream if you know the trick. To whip light cream into a firm, mousse-like consistency, simply add 1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water for every 2 cups of cream. After whipping, refrigerate it for 2 hours.

3. Fast, Easy Fluff
However you make your whipped cream, you can give it more lasting power to hold its shape longer. The secret: Add a little marshmallow fluff to the mix.

4. Sensational Cookies
Want to take your classic chocolate chip cookie recipe to the next level? Simply shake on some coarse sea salt before baking.

5. Add This for Extra-Rich Brownies
It may sound strange at first, but mashed or pureed avocado can replace oil or butter in many baked goods. It’s especially good with chocolate and adds a rich, creamy texture to brownies. Bonus: It has healthy fats!

A Surprising Tool — Dilemmas Dental Floss Can Solve

6. Slice a Log of Cookie Dough
Using floss (rather than a knife) to slice will give you clean cookies that don’t crumble or smoosh. This technique works well for cinnamon rolls, too.

7. Release Dough from Cutting Board
When you’re rolling out dough, it’s not hard for it to get stuck. Slide the floss under the dough and lift gently to free your dough.

8. Tie and Dry Herbs
Bundle them using the floss and hang them with leaves facing down to dry. It should take about 10 days for leaves to feel dry to the touch—that’s your indication that they are ready to use.

9. Cut Wraps, Burritos, Calzones, Sushi Rolls, and More
A heavy knife will slice but also drag out all the filling. Try a gentler approach with floss.

---

Savory Secrets

10. Sweet Addition to Chili
Although it...

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Is It Too Late to Stop Climate Change?

On Friday, in more than 3000 protests worldwide, young people walked out of their classes in a youth-led climate strike. Estimates claim as many as 4 million people participated in the mass walk out, and their demands were clear: it’s time to take fast and decisive action to stop climate change so that our children have a future. 

Over the past 100 years, the average surface temperature of the Earth has risen 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit, with most of that warming happening in the last 35 years. Ocean temps have risen by 0.4 degrees at the surface and sea levels have risen globally by 8 inches. Glaciers are retreating globally from the Alps to the Himalayas to the Andes, from Alaska to Africa. Greenland and Antarctica have seen hundreds of billions of tons of ice loss. 

With the effects of climate change being so widespread and irrefutable, does this mean we are too late? Is there still time to slow it down?

Greenhouse gases still live in the atmosphere 

Human contribution to climate change is mostly through the emission of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. But even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gases tomorrow, global temperatures would continue to rise. That’s because of something scientists call “thermal inertia.” Basically, greenhouse gases live on in the atmosphere. We’ll be paying the price for greenhouse gases we’ve already emitted decades into the future. 

Even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gases tomorrow, global temperatures would continue to rise.

The oceans remove the majority of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over timescales of a century or so and have a stored heat capacity. In addition, the remainder of carbon dioxide, some 20-35%, is removed much more slowly and lingers in the atmosphere for as long as thousands of years. By contrast, methane (another greenhouse gas) only hangs out in the atmosphere for 10-12 years before it's lost to...

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How to Use Colored Pens to Organize Absolutely Everything

Today we’re going to explore several different ways to use erasable colored pens to make everything easier.

Pens! I just love pens! I have big pens, small pens, and pens of every rainbow color. As a left-handed person, pens have always been problematic. The ink smudges the side of my hand as I write. Then Zebra came out with their Sarasa pens with super-fast-drying ink. At long last, I could enjoy the benefits of vibrant colors, permanent lines, high contrast, and all the awesomeness that pens provide.

But I couldn’t erase. I could only scribble. And scribbling through writing makes my notes ugly. We can’t have that! It rained on my parade. It harshed my mellow. It ate my homework.

Having erasable pens in 30 colors has changed my entire relationship with writing. And it’s changed my workflows.

Until this year. This year, I learned about the most wonderful, amazing pens ever: the Pilot Frixion series (that's F-r-i-x-i-o-n). At this point, I have .35mm Frixion pens in 20 colors, and .5mm Frixion pens in 10 colors. 

These pens give the best of all worlds—they dry fast, they are available in enough colors to make my inner teenager giddy with delight, and they’re erasable. Completely.

Having erasable pens in 30 colors has changed my entire relationship with writing. And it’s changed my workflows. 

Color is quick!

Color is powerful. Your brain can find and recognize color very quickly. (If you're challenged with color blindness, you may have to change up your color schemes to accommodate that.)

To get more organized than you've ever been in your life, you just need to use color methodically, and in ways that help you streamline what you do.

Use color to separate sections of your notes

You probably take meeting notes for all your meetings in a single notebook—hopefully, with a table of contents at the front to help you find the notes for any given meeting. (If not, we covered that in episode 459, Get Even More Organized with a Table of Contents.)

As you glance through the notebook, you can quickly distinguish different meetings.

This is a great system for helping you always know where to find your meeting notes. Sometimes a given meeting doesn’t generate many notes, so you end up with multiple meetings on one page of your notebook. 

For every meeting, choose a different color pen for notes. Then, as you glance through the...

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Weights vs. Cardio: Keep Them Separate or Combine?

A while back, I received a message on Facebook from listener Lindsey. She said:

“In another episode you talked about how aerobic exercise and weight lifting affect each other, but I'm not sure I understood. As a runner, can I run to the gym to lift weights and run home again or should I keep the cardio and weights on separate days? Thanks for your help!”

After thanking Lindsey for her great question, I promised that I would do a deeper dive in the near future. I also told her that, in a nutshell, if she wants to get the fullest benefits of each workout, she should separate them. But since she is primarily a runner (and probably not too concerned about packing on as much muscle as possible), doing a short run to warm-up for and cool-down from a strength session is a great way to maximize her time and put a few more miles on her legs but not to do that every day. To be a good runner, she must also have dedicated run days.

Now, if I were Lindsey, I would have written back and asked me a follow-up question that would have gone something like this: “If I do want to get the fullest benefits of each workout, how much would I have to separate those workouts by?”

Well, good question, imaginary Lindsey. Let’s look at that!

How Long Should You Wait Between Workouts?

A recent study, aiming to determine whether the amount of recovery between a strength and an aerobic workout influenced the response to the training program, concluded that fitness coaches should avoid scheduling two contradictory qualities (like running and weightlifting, or swimming and powerlifting) with less than a six-hour recovery period between them if the goal is to obtain full adaptive responses to each workout.

Avoid scheduling two contradictory activities with less than a six-hour recovery period between them.

So, like I told Lindsey, if your goal is to get strong, there is some significant detriment that cardio can have on strength development. This is true whether you do the cardio workout in the same workout, or if you simply do cardio less than six hours before your weight training.

The researchers who performed this study also stated that daily training without a recovery period between sessions (or training twice a day) is not optimal for neuromuscular and aerobic improvements. So ideally, if you want to get stronger, you should separate your cardio and strength workouts by more than six hours.

Now, this seems straightforward for someone like Lindsey who is mostly interested in running and is doing strength training because she is a smart runner who understands the value of pre-hab. But what if the event you are training for requires that...

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Interviewing, Story Structure, and Writing Tools with Jonathan Small

In this interview with Jonathan Small, long-time magazine writer and editor and the creator and host of the Write About Now podcast, we talked about how to conduct an interview, the secret structure that helps you write a great story (including a great lede), and digital and physical tools that Jonathan finds essential in his work as a writer.

Jonathan is an award-winning journalist, editor, and podcast host and producer based in Los Angeles. Write About Now features interviews with successful writers about their lives and stories. Jonathan has written for The New York Times, TV Guide, Cosmo, Details, Maxim, Good Housekeeping, and many other outlets. Before moving to LA, he worked in New York as executive editor of Stuff, Glamour, and Fitness magazines. 

Mignon was also recently a guest on Write About Now.

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above or by finding the Grammar Girl podcast on any podcasting app, but if you prefer to read it, we also have a complete (rough) transcript.

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How to Pay Off Your Credit Cards When No One Wants to Help You

This post is sponsored by Debt.com.

America is drowning in debt—and credit cards are dragging us down. According to statistics from Debt.com:

• We owe more than $1 trillion on our cards. That’s enough to buy every NFL, NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball team in the country
• Nearly two-thirds (over 65%) of us carry monthly balances. We’re paying the credit card companies staggering interest rates each month
• We owe enough to buy our families food for a year. The average household owes more than $16,000 on their credit cards

And while a common narrative is that people run up credit card balances with frivolous spending, the reality is that most people facing challenges with debt didn’t have any other options. Stagnant incomes, rising prices, and the ever-increasing cost of living is leaving millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Then, when a disaster strikes, these people are forced to go into debt just to stay afloat.

Meet Diane, a single mom who found a solution

That’s the type of situation that Diane faced after she lost her job. Although she was out of work for less than two months, as a single-mother of two she was already stretched thin with no emergency savings to fall back on. When she her company laid her off, all of her bills, groceries, and other necessities went on credit—it was the only choice she had. The job loss created a major setback she’s still working to recover from.

While a common narrative is that people run up credit card balances with frivolous spending, the reality is that most people facing challenges with debt didn’t have any other options.

Once she got a new job, Diane was optimistic that she’d be able to catch up. But getting ahead of her credit card debt proved to be harder than she’d anticipated. Her new job covered all the expenses in her budget, but there wasn’t much left over. She didn’t have extra cash to make more than the minimum payments on her credit cards. And any time an unexpected expense came up, she was forced to put that on a credit card, too. Instead of regaining stability and control over her debt, her balances were slowly getting higher.

Things got worse in 2017 when interest rates started to rise. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates three times in 2017 and another four times in 2018. Since almost all credit cards have variable interest rates, consumer interest rates gradually increased. And anyone with high balances like Diane also saw their monthly minimum payment requirements increase...

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How to Make Tough Decisions as a Couple

Marnie and Tom live in a nice suburb in the Midwest with their two young children. Marnie’s mother, Elaine, lives about an hour away.

When the kids were babies, Marnie's mother used to drive to Marnie and Tom's every day to see her grandkids and help out. But lately, Marnie's mother's health has been declining, so she can’t drive over anymore.

One day Marnie gets an idea: What if she and Tom sell their house and move closer to her mother? Then the kids would be able to see their grandmother more often. Plus, Marnie would be able to keep a closer eye on her mother in case her health gets worse. Seems like a perfect solution.

There’s only one problem—Tom doesn’t want to move. Tom likes the neighborhood they’re in. He thinks he and Marnie paid too much for their house, but other than that he’s very comfortable.

Tom says no.

Tough decisions and zero-sum situations

Faced with big decisions like this, a couple will ordinarily try to compromise. But in this case, there’s really no half-way. Economists call this kind of thing a zero-sum situation. Someone’s going to win, and someone’s going to lose.

For over thirty years, I’ve watched couples struggle with zero-sum problems. Some more successfully, and some less so.

Some classic zero-sum problems for couples involve whether or not to move—often for one partner’s career—and whether or not to have another child. But there are lots of others.    

For thirty years, I’ve watched couples struggle with zero-sum problems. Some more successfully, and some less so. Today, we’re going to talk about what works, and what doesn’t, when you’re faced with one of these situations.

Thee ways not to make tough decisions as a couple

 First, let’s talk first about what doesn’t work. There are three main approaches that don’t work. Unfortunately, most couples try all three:

Mistake #1 - Trying to convince your partner they'll be better off

The first mistake is to try to convince your partner that they’ll be much happier if they do things your way. In Marnie’s case, this might involve demonstrating to Tom all the wonderful things about the neighborhood she'd like to move to. Wouldn't Tom be better off there? 

No one likes to be told they’ll be happier if they just do things your way.

 Here’s the problem: No one likes to be told they’ll be happier if they just do things your way. It's better to assume each person has good reasons for feeling the way they do. And that those reasons aren’t...

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5 Strategies to Refresh Family Discipline and Restore Calm

Raising kids is a joy, but it also comes with obstacles. Disrespectful kids, defiant interactions, broken rules—they're all part of normal family life. Are your discipline techniques up to the challenge? Here are five discipline strategies you can use to restore peace and calm in your daily life.

1. Take time for a reality check

The best gift you can give to yourself and your family is to “get real” with an open and honest reality check. Set aside a quiet chunk of time and reflect on what’s going well and what’s not in your family’s day-to-day life. Are homework struggles now part of your norm? Are your kids slacking off on daily chores? Are back talk and sassy attitudes part of the mix?

As our kids get older, they quickly learn to buck the rules to their advantage. Your fourth-grade daughter may have been happily on-board with walking the dog every day after school. But now that she’s in seventh grade, hanging out with friends is higher on her priority list, so her attention to her usual chores has gone right out the window.

You're confronted with new options:

• Accept the change and begrudgingly take up the slack yourself
• Give your child a piece of your mind and dictate that she’s going to do exactly what she’s told to do—like it or not
• Have a heart-to-heart and acknowledge her feelings first, then reinforce that being part of a family means contributing 

Which method do you usually choose? Is it working for you? It may be time to change your approach.

Sit down with your family to make the time to review what needs to happen to promote household harmony. Get everyone's input and ideas so you can create a new plan that's realistic and doable for all. 

2. Review your parenting style

In my episode about parenting styles, we looked at the most common approaches parents take to raising their kids. The concept of parenting styles was introduced by Diane Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist, to explain differences in the way parents attempt to control and socialize their children.

Which of these styles do you see yourself fitting?

Helicopter parents constantly hover over their children—just like a helicopter! They monitor their kids excessively and jump in whenever they see a potential problem.

Free-range parents encourage their...

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An Interview with Jonathan Small: Transcript

9 Tips for Dealing with Allergies

Keep Your Home Allergy-Free

A good first step when battling allergy symptoms is to make sure you're living and working in a non-allergenic environment. There are many things that can aggravate your respiratory system, including cigarette smoke, dust, animal dander, grass cuttings, and smog. Also check your home for mold—it can be under the sink, in the basement, in the bathroom, in the basement, or any other damp, dark, place in your house, like behind furniture that isn't moved very often. Disinfecting walls and furniture with Lysol is enough to kill minor mold infestations; putting a dehumidifier in the basement may also help.

Diminish Dog Dander

Allergic to your friend Fido? Try bathing your dog with baby shampoo once a week. It will help reduce the dander that causes your symptoms. Basic grooming like brushing can also cut down on shedding. If you’re the allergic one, however, ask a loved one to do this task!

Pummel Pollen

If you have a pollen allergy, try to keep sneeze-inducing allergens out of your home. Take a shower immediately after doing any yard work to get rid of pollens you may have carried in on your hair and skin, and throw your clothes in the laundry basket. Animals can carry in pollen, too. After taking your dog for a walk or letting your cat out, wipe him or her down with a wet rag or baby wipe. Showering at night can also reduce pollen on your hair and skin and help you sleep better.

Mind the Mold Spores

If you’re prone to nasal allergies, be sure your houseplants aren’t contributing to the problem. Many potted plants give off mold spores, thanks to damp soil, but you can reduce this risk by choosing varieties that don’t need a lot of water like cacti, jade plants, and dragon tree.

Get Your Ducts in a Row

If you find yourself getting headaches or sinus trouble more often than you used to, it might be that your home’s ducts simply need a good cleaning. Whenever air conditioning or heating is on, tiny particles that have accumulated inside the ducts blow out, too, including mold, mouse droppings, and plain old dust. If you have severe allergies, a professional duct cleaning may be just what the doctor ordered.

Thyme to Treat Allergies

Look no further than your spice rack to help treat allergy symptoms. Place a tablespoon of dried thyme leaves in a bowl (or two tablespoons fresh leaves), and pour two cups or so of boiling water. Allow to cool...

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4 Must-Do's for College Mental Health

I remember college fondly as the most transformative and fun time of my life. I experienced some of my worst heartbreaks, proudest triumphs, and most cringe-worthy mistakes. I also formed my most precious friendships. Now that I’m on the other side teaching, mentoring, and treating college students, I see just how challenging college can be. Academic demands are raised to a whole new level. And this is often the first time you're living away from home and having to be independent. The newfound freedom and responsibility are both intoxicating and intimidating. There are no more guard rails. All of this is hard enough, but if you're a college student who struggles with mental health, the college experience can be especially difficult, and even dangerous.

Mental health challenges are common for college students

A 2018 report from the World Mental Health Surveys International College Student project found that one-third of college freshmen reported experiencing mental health problems in the past year. Another large-scale study of over 150,000 college students found that in the past 10 years the percentage of students who have had a diagnosed mental health problem at some point in their lives increased from 22% to 36%.

The good news is that, during this period, stigma about mental illness has gone down. The bad news is that the rates of depression and suicidality have gone up. It’s very possible that the rates were always high and they’re just now being revealed because students are more willing to talk about their struggles.

More students are reaching out for help. But, of course, this isn't the end of the story.

This topic is especially close to my heart because of the tragic history of student suicides at my alma mater, Cornell University. During my junior year, there were six suicides within six months. It shook our community to the core. The data since then have been encouraging—more students are reaching out for help. But, of course, this isn't the end of the story. 

Students of color are just as likely as White students to have mental health needs but are much less likely to seek help. September is National Suicide Prevention Month. It's a good time to think about the importance of setting up college students for optimal mental health while they pursue one of the most challenging endeavors of life.

4 things to do for your mental health in college

There are...

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Why Esperanto Is an Amazing Language

Have you ever sighed over the fact that there are two words in English pronounced “AYT” — yet one of them is spelled A-T-E, while the other is spelled E-I-G-H-T? Have you ever rolled your eyes because “though” and “through” are spelled almost exactly the same, but sound totally different? Have you ever failed miserably trying to explain to a kid why the past tense of “walk” is “walked,” but the past tense of “run” is “ran,” and “slide” is “slid”?

Esperanto is free of the inconsistencies, illogic, and irregularities that make English frustrating.

If so, have I got a language for you. It’s called “Esperanto.” And it’s blessedly free of the inconsistencies, illogic, and irregularities that make English so frustrating to learn — especially as a second language.

Esperanto was the brainchild of L.L. Zamenhof, a Polish eye doctor born in 1859 who went by the pseudonym “Doktoro Esperanto” — that is, “Doctor Hopeful.” What he hoped for was a world where all humans could easily communicate with each other using a common language — one that was simple, easy to learn, and detached from any political or cultural significance. He saw this language as a great equalizer. It would be a second language that anyone could learn — and instantly be on the same footing as anyone else.

Zamenhof worked on his idea for years. Then, in 1905, he published "Fundamento de Esperanto," a primer for his new, international language. Its words are derived from roots found in many European languages, particularly Romance languages like French, Italian, and Spanish.

Pronunciation Is Simple in Esperanto

The beauty of Esperanto lies in its simplicity, which starts with pronunciation. The Esperanto alphabet has 28 letters, and each letter makes one and only one sound. 

For example:

• The letter A makes the “ah” sound we hear in the French “ami”— never the hard A of “name” or the “uh” sound of “amigo.” 
• The letter C makes only the soft sound we hear in Ceasar or Circe. If you want the hard C sound in “cat,” you use the letter K. And if you want the “ch” sound in “chair,” you use a special Esperanto letter that doesn’t exist in English — a C with a circumflex on top (Ĉ), known as “chu.” 

This is in contrast to English, in which one letter can make multiple sounds. Think of the G in “Greg” versus the one in “George,” for example.

In Esperanto, one letter equals one sound.

...

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12+ Things You Should Never Spend Money On

Don’t Spend Money on Travel Fees

Taking a vacation? Studies have shown that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the cheapest days to fly (although others dispute this, saying weekends can often be cheaper). If you’re renting a car, don’t pay for jacked-up rental car fees that rental agencies have to pay to be at the airport. Instead, take a taxi to a nearby rental agency and get your car there. They’re usually far cheaper. (For packing tips, including how to pack jewelry and keep a musty smell out of a suitcase, check out our recent post on tips that will change the way you pack.)

Get Free Stuff Online

Free stuff is few and far between on the internet these days, but you can still get free samples of new products from Proctor and Gamble by joining P&G Everyday. We also love HeyItsFree.Net and Freebies4Mom.com for finding free stuff online. And of course, don’t forget to like your favorite brands on Facebook and sign up for their newsletters to find out about deals and get coupons.

Make Your Own Vinegar Cleaners

Making your own DIY cleaners is super easy. For counters and windows, just use a solution of half white vinegar, half water (and use old newspaper instead of paper towels when washing windows!). You can also use white vinegar and water as a shower spray. Use 1 part white vinegar and 9 parts water in a spray bottle and spray it over your tub after every shower to prevent mold and mildew.

DIY Wood Polish

Instead of buying wood polishes at the store, mix 1 cup olive oil with juice of one lemon and rub into wood furniture.

Never Buy Jewelry Cleaner

Clean silver with toothpaste! Use the white, non-gel variety and white on with a dry cloth, then wipe off. The tarnish will come with it! Or, try this amazing trick: Line a bowl with aluminum foil, and add a tablespoon of salt or baking soda. Fill with warm water, then add your silver jewelry and agitate the water. Then, simply rinse or wipe off the tarnish!

Dusting Hacks

Who needs a store-bought duster? Just use a hair dryer! Gently blowing air on knick-knacks and other household items is a quick and easy way to remove dust. If that doesn’t work, try one of these other dusting hacks.

Save at the Grocery Store

Real Simple recently linked to our article about...

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Should You Stop Saving for Retirement to Get Out of Debt?

A Money Girl podcast listener named Heather says, “I work for a nonprofit and contribute 4% to my 403(b)—but I’m also trying to get out of debt. Would it be better for me to stop my retirement contributions until I pay off my debt or to continue investing at the same time?”

Thanks for this great question, Heather! It's critical to save for retirement and to pay off debt. But with only so much money to go around, knowing where to focus your attention can be tricky.

In this post, I'll answer Heather's question and give you a five-step guide to follow when you're not sure how to manage or allocate your money. You'll come away with a clear path to prioritize your precious financial resources so you can build wealth faster.

1. Evaluate your savings

I receive many questions from podcast listeners and readers about paying off debt. There's a lot of confusion about which debts to tackle first, how aggressive to be, and ways to balance paying off debt and saving.

Before you spend too much time agonizing over the details, take a step back, and evaluate your savings. Do you have a cash reserve? How much?

Building some amount of emergency savings should be your number one financial priority. Creating a cash reserve must come before paying down debt or investing, so you're protected from a financial emergency.

Having savings can be the difference between surviving a hardship—such as a large unexpected bill or losing your job—or getting buried under it and going further into debt.

Savings needs vary

The amount of emergency savings you need varies depending on your lifestyle and financial situation. You probably need a more substantial financial cushion if you:

• work in an unstable industry
• are self-employed
• are the sole breadwinner for a large family

A single person with no dependents and plenty of job opportunities wouldn't require as much emergency cash.

Ideally, you should accumulate a minimum of three to six months’ worth of living expenses. Another good rule of thumb is to save at least 10% of your annual gross income. For instance, if you earn $50,000, make a goal to accumulate and maintain a $5,000 emergency fund.

A good rule of thumb is to save at least 10% of your annual gross income.

If you’re starting with zero savings, you could begin with a small goal, such as saving 1% or 2% of your income each year. Or you could start with a small target like $...

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When are Sports Drinks Necessary?

Are there times when sports drinks with electrolytes are necessary for hydration?

Nutrition Diva listener Phillip writes: "I work hard outside every day and I sweat a lot. I drink 2 to 3 liters of Gatorade Zero for the electrolytes. I choose the artificially-sweetened drinks to avoid consuming too much sugar, but are the artificial sweeteners or other ingredients in these drinks bad for me?"

Phillip brings up several interesting questions: When is it necessary to replace the electrolytes we lose when we perspire? Is a sports drink like Gatorade the best way to do this? And what about the sugar or artificial sweeteners in these drinks? Are they harmful?

To help me sort through all of this, I sat down with sports nutritionist Kelly Pritchett. Dr. Pritchett is an Associate Professor in Nutrition and Exercise Science at Central Washington University. She's worked with elite and collegiate athletes as well as with active individuals, and she's an athlete herself. In today's show, I'll share some of the insights and information that I gleaned from my conversion with Kelly.

What happens when you sweat?

Let's bracket, for a moment, the question about sugar vs. artificial sweeteners and talk first about what happens when we sweat. According to Dr. Pritchett, your body might produce anywhere from half a liter to 3 liters of perspiration per hour. How much you sweat will depend on your level of exertion and the conditions—how hot or humid it is, or both. But it'll also depend on your level of fitness, and how accustomed you are to the environmental conditions.

Depending on how long and hard you're sweating, the loss of fluids could cause you to become dehydrated. And this can be remedied simply by taking in plain water.

You're not only losing water when you sweat. You're also losing electrolytes: sodium, magnesium calcium, potassium, and chloride.

But, of course, you're not only losing water when you sweat. You're also losing electrolytes: sodium, magnesium calcium, potassium, and chloride. Dr. Pritchett points out that you lose far more sodium than anything else. Average sodium losses are 1,000 mg per hour! That's almost a one-half teaspoon of table salt.

Excessive and extended sweating can potentially lead to dangerously low blood sodium levels, a serious condition called hyponatremia. In these situations, drinking too much plain water,  without any electrolytes, can actually make the situation worse by further diluting the sodium concentration of the blood.

If you're playing a set of tennis, running a 5K, or out in the garden for a couple of hours, and you're otherwise healthy, you're probably fine...

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What Is a ‘Watershed Moment'?

Mr. Mustin, an English teacher from South Carolina, asked why we describe something as a “watershed moment,” and I realized I didn’t know. 

Great question! Here’s what I found:

“Watershed” originated as a term that describes the landscape, but it has different meanings in American and British English.

'Watershed': American English

In the US, a “watershed” is an area of land that eventually drains into a body of water. For example, if rain falls on some land and that water ends up in the Boise River, then that land is part of the Boise River Watershed.

'Watershed': British English

In Britain, it’s a little different. The watershed is the ridge or crest that divides water that flows into different basins (or what we’d call watersheds in the US). So by the British definition, water flows into different drainage basins on different sides of a watershed. And it’s this British meaning that gives us the more metaphorical meanings of “watershed” that Mr. Mustin was asking about because a “watershed” or “watershed moment” is something like a dividing line between two events or times.

Watershed Moments

For example, a famous quotation often attributed to William Faulkner or Frank Lloyd Wright is “A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the age of 50, and a fool if he doesn’t afterward.”

The Quote Investigator website, which looks at the origin of quotations, found that this quotation was popular among doctors long before Faulkner or Wright could have said it, and the site describes the turning point in the quotation as the “watershed age.” It says, “The watershed age was variable; sometimes fifty was specified and sometimes forty.” At the time, doctors believed that before that age you shouldn’t drink, whether it was 40 or 50, and after that age you should.

As Mr. Mustin noted, when “watershed” is used metaphorically, it’s often followed by the word “moment,” as in this quotation from Walter Cronkite about the death of Winston Churchill:

"The death of Churchill at 90 was one of those...

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Grammar Quirks: Goldie Goldbloom on Sentence Filtering

Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?

Goldie Goldbloom: Awww, don’t make me choose between my babies! Writers shouldn’t play favourites with books or words because favourtism will rise up and bite you in the tender bits. But I’m fond of slang words from other countries and languages. Maybe malarkey isn’t an Irish word, but for the purposes of this response it is. Yiddish is full of the most juicy words and expressions that have made their way over to English. Shlemiel! Guastafesta! Bludger! Malarkey! Those words literally taste good in your mouth when you say them. Try them out. They have far more oomph than, let’s say, idiot, wet blanket, beggar, lies.

Grammar Girl: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?

Goldie Goldbloom: "Parameters." "Leverage." "Influencer." Shudder of utter and unmitigated horror at what the world of words has become. First there was the "game changer" and then it became the "disruptor." What was wrong with the perfectly humble and honest "good idea"?

Grammar Girl: What word will you always misspell?

Goldie Goldbloom: When I have to use the word "accommodate," I cringe. I type it in. The red line thingy tells me I have it wrong. I retype it differently. It’s still wrong. I erase it and write "make comfortable" instead. And then, being Australian but having lived in America for a long time, my spelling is all messed up anyway. Jeweler? One L or two? Neighbour? A U or not? This would all be OK if I could settle on one country’s spelling but nah. I’m wrecked.

Grammar Girl: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see added to the dictionary? Why?

Goldie Goldbloom: "Swullocky." It’s in my first book, "The Paperbark Shoe," and I invented it to describe the way clouds look when they are hanging low and it’s about to rain. I still use it. Every day that goes by, historical words that describe natural phenomena vanish from the lexicon because people don’t spend as much time outside, observing.

Grammar Girl:...

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How Deep is the Deepest Hole in the World?

A portal to the center of the eary sits among the ruins of an abandoned project site in Murmansk, Russia, not far from the Norwegian border. Sure, it's covered and welded shut, but it still sounds like a horror film to me. The deepest hole ever dug may be pretty unassuming, but I suspect I'm not alone in being a little freaked out by it. An internet search about the wordl's deepest hole turns up the suggestion "Kola Superdeep Borehole screams." No wonder locals call it the well to hell.

Before the very idea of a superdeep hole starts haunting your dreams, keep this in mind—the hole is only nine inches in diameter (that's about 23 centimeters). There's no way you could fall into it.

How deep is the deepest hole?

Known as the Kola Superdeep Borehole, the deepest hole ever dug reaches approximately 7.5 miles below the Earth’s surface (or 12,262 kilometers), a depth that took about 20 years to reach. 

The hole was intended to go “as deep as possible,” which researches expected to be around 9 miles (that’s ~14,500 meters). But the scientists and engineers were forced to give up when they hit unexpectedly high temperatures. At 7.5 miles below the surface, the 2.7 billion year old rocks twere at temperatures of around 180 degrees Celsius (or a scorching 356 degrees Fahrenheit). This was almost twice as hot as they'd predicted.

The Russian scientists in Kola described the rocks at those depths as behaving more like plastic than rock.

Such high temperatures deform the drill bits and pipes. The rocks themselves also become more malleable. The Russian scientists in Kola described the rocks at those depths as behaving more like plastic than rock. 

Since the drilling was stopped in 1992, and the project site was abandoned around a decade later, the Kola Superdeep Borehole has maintained the record for the deepest artificial point on Earth. Humans have since dug longer boreholes, including the 12,289-meter borehole drilled in the Al Shaheen Oil Field in Qatar and the 12,345-meter offshore oil well near the Russian island of Sakhalin. But the hole in Kola remains the deepest.

Why do we dig deep holes?

There are a few reasons we humans dig deep into the Earth—extracting resources like fossil fuels and metals, for starters. A 100-year-old ...

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Secrets of the Fittest Woman in the World

At age 26, Katrín Davíðsdóttir is an Icelandic CrossFit athlete who's best known for her gritty appearances at the CrossFit Games. She is the women's champion of the 2015 and 2016 CrossFit Games, making her one of two women who can claim the title of two-time Fittest Woman on Earth. So when it comes to picking the brain of someone who knows how to win, Katrín is the obvious choice. I just had to invite her on the podcast.

Her book, Dottir: My Journey to Becoming a Two-Time CrossFit Games Champion hit the bookshelves (physical and virtual) in August 2019 and, in all honesty, I was blown away by it. I started reading the book out of sheer curiosity but I kept reading it out of compulsion. Like watching the CrossFit games themselves, I needed to find one what happened next! This isn't just a book about CrossFit it is a book about mental and physical strength, goal setting, struggle, mindset, motivation, heartbreak and compassion.

In our conversation, I asked Katrín to elaborate on these topics:

• Why they call her the Sled Dog
• How she stays so highly motivated, not only in competition but in her everyday training
• How planning for disaster helps her succeed
• What lessons she can share with us mere mortals who are just beginning our fitness journey.

The Interview with Katrín

Below is a transcript of the conversation. But, as always, I encourage you to listen to the audio podcast version of the interview by pressing the play button at the top of this page. 

We began the conversation discussing how odd it is having written a memoir when you are still active in the sport.

Katrín: Now, when people I meet have read the book, they might know something about me that I haven't told them and they always wonder if they should say that they know it. Should they ask me about it? And I am always like, "Don't worry about it."

Brock: Yes. It's like the way that social media has taken us to a certain level of knowing things about each other's lives without actually having talked to them.

Katrín: And you might not even have met a person and you feel like you just completely know them.

Brock: Yeah. I feel like I know you because I read the book and you do reveal a lot of very personal details. And, I have to admit, when I started reading the book, I did it because it passed across my desk, and I like CrossFit, and you're a formidable athlete, of course. So, I read it really out of curiosity. But then I got totally sucked in! Because it really is such a powerful story. And you're so honest in it too. Was that hard for you?

...

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6 Steps to Prepare for a Video Shoot and Make Great Video

How do you prepare for a video shoot? Solid prep is the key to making videos people can actually bear to watch.

Bernice, the owner of Green Growing Things plant stores, has decided to make videos. She and her fiancé, Melvin, are looking forward to their wedding. She's determined to create a video series for their guests. She wants the guests to know exactly, precisely how to behave. (One person's micro-managing is, as they say, another person's perfect wedding.)

Video always takes a lot longer than you think it will. And it's more complicated.

Being an action-oriented executive, she just turned on her webcam and started recording. Fifteen minutes later, she played it back only to discover, to her horror, that it's incoherent. The sound is tinny and unflattering. Her skin looks pasty white, and that false eyelash malfunction should never, ever have been caught on tape. She's at her therapist's office working through it right now.

Whether you're doing a webinar, a recorded video, or a videoconference, you can use a simple pre-flight checklist to avoid some of the most common mistakes that make video … less than compelling.

1. Budget enough time

In an ideal world, a five-minute video takes five minutes to produce.

That's so, so cute. In the real world, a five-minute video takes hours to produce. When you're planning for any presentation, meeting, or recording that uses technology, be sure to schedule 15–30 minutes beforehand to set up and double-check that everything's working. The one time you forget to check is the one time everything will fail the instant you go live. Budget enough time to run the tests, and enough time to fix things when—not if—they don't work.

The one time you forget to check is the one time everything will fail the instant you go live.

Even if you plan to use a video completely unedited, schedule enough time afterward for downloading and uploading video files, saving them to the right place on servers, and so on.

Every week my Get-It-Done Group records our weekly hour-long community call on Zoom. When we're done, it's a simple matter of downloading the recording, uploading it to the community web site, and sending an email and Slack message that it's available for viewing. Simple, yes. And it takes about 15–30 minutes.

Plan enough time for setup, testing, your actual video time, and cleanup.

2. Outline your talk

We ramble when we make conversation face-to-face. In-person, this works. Mostly. But on video, it's much less compelling.

I was watching a YouTube video about how to use a Light Whip (...

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How to Do Fact Checking

The actor Cary Grant once said of acting that, “It takes 500 small details to add up to one favorable impression.” That’s true for writing as well—concrete details can paint a picture for a reader and establish credibility for a writer. Details can be tricky, however, and in the swirl of research and the dash of exposition, it is possible to get things wrong: dates, names, quotes, and facts.

I’ve been doing some fact-checking of my own lately for a book project and have a few tips.

If you don’t know, don’t assume

Is “guerrilla” originally a French word or Spanish? I once assumed it was French, not bothering to check. But it turned out to be Spanish.

Don’t be misled by terminology 

I once referred to the Soviet Revolution as occurring in October of 1917, based on the notion that it was the October Revolution. But that’s only true on the Old Style calendar; on the New Style calendar, the revolution took place in November 1917.

What we think we know may not be the whole story.

Beware of common knowledge

What we think we know may not be the whole story. Take the simple statement that Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. He was involved, to be sure, and a key player. But he was not a lone artisan (he had financial backers supporting him and skilled craftsmen working for him) and it is more accurate to say that he devised a revolutionary method of printing with mechanical movable type.

Keep a list of the kinds of things that need to be verified.

Learn what needs checking

For any project, keep a list of the kinds of things that need to be verified: names, dates, places, arithmetic, and more. Names shift in your memory: Is it Pacific Crest Trail or Pacific Coast Trail? Dates can lead you down a garden path—a film might have been produced in one year and released in the next. Someone elected in 1980 would have taken office in 1981. A bridge or building you mention might not have existed in the time period of your novel.

The arithmetic of lifespans can be tricky as well: If someone was born in 1894 and lived until 1976, how old were they when they died? Eighty-two is what you get by subtracting 1894 from 1976, but the actual age depends on the birth and death days: December 15, 1894 and February 20, 1976 yields eighty-one and change.

Look for original sources

Information mutates from source to source, so it is preferable to find the original source. Where that isn’t possible, look for the best source possible—something that is peer reviewed or fact-checked.

Ask for help

Reach out to librarians, archivists, and other scholars. When I found myself stumped about...

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It’s Not Too Late for Five Retirement Planning Strategies

Increasingly, older Americans are choosing to “retire” in more active and engaging ways. You may dream of working part-time, becoming self-employed, volunteering in your community, or traveling while working remotely. 

Whether you’re ready to exit a high-pressure job or you love your career and can’t imagine leaving it, getting prepared for retirement sooner rather than later is wise. Building financial security and actively maintaining your health now gives you more options and reduces any stress you may experience about the future.

A recent UnitedHealthcare survey found 46% of older adults worry about not having enough money as they age. Twelve percent of retired adults, or those who had retirement plans, re-entered the workforce because they needed the money.

Here are five planning strategies to make sure you can retire on your terms no matter your budget.

1. Determine your retirement savings goal

To know if you're on track, figure the total amount of retirement savings you’ll need. While you can’t be sure exactly how much you’ll spend in the future, you can create an estimate using your current budget.

Add up the total of your living expenses, such as housing, food, insurance and transportation. Once you’re retired, some costs may end, such as purchasing career-related clothing or commuting. Expenses such as travel, hobbies and insurance may also have a new impact on your budget after retirement.

A common target is to assume you will need 70% to 80% of your pre-retirement income after you stop working, but there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer for how much retirement savings you should have. It depends on many variables, including:

• The age at which you want to retire
• The lifestyle you want to live—what are your hopes and goals for retirement?
• Your future debt, such as a mortgage or car loans
• How much you wish to withdraw from savings each year
• Your average pre- and post-retirement investment returns
• The amount of Social Security retirement income you’ll receive

You might have other assets, such as a mortgage-free home or income during retirement, to boost your future financial security. To help crunch the numbers, use an online retirement calculator or consult with a certified financial planner for guidance.

2. Use a spending plan that prioritizes retirement

Once you have an idea of how much you...

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Play Grammar Pop on the Web!

Relationship Doctor Archive

Are Soulmates Real?

No one ever asks, “Are soulmates real?” just because they think it’s an interesting question. There’s always more to it than that. It’s like when your 5-year-old son or daughter asks, “Are monsters real?” They’re not just asking you this because they’re fascinated by the topic of monsters in general. Most likely, they’re asking you whether monsters are real because they think they may have just seen one. 

No one ever asks, 'Are soulmates real?' just because they think it’s an interesting question. There’s always more to it than that.

Most people yearn to find their soulmate, and they assume they'll be happy once they do. But as writer Elizabeth Gilbert notes in her best-selling book, Eat Pray Love, "A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in."

In other words, if you’re hoping to find your soulmate, be careful what you wish for.

Why Do Soulmates So Often Cause Us Pain?

But what is it that makes you, dear listener, interested in the question of soulmates right now?

Maybe you’ve fallen in love with someone who you think might be your soulmate and you’re finding the relationship harder than you expected. Or maybe you’ve found your soulmate, but they’re married to someone else. Or maybe it just didn’t work out. And now you’re left trying to make sense of it all. Because why would this have happened if the two of you were really soulmates?  

Elizabeth Gilbert also wrote: "A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful." But hey, maybe that’s just Elizabeth Gilbert. Maybe other people’s experiences will be more positive.

Let’s say you decide to google the question, “Are soulmates real?” What are you likely to find? 

What We Know About Soulmates

First, you’ll find a lot of speculation about whether soulmates are even possible. In order to believe in soulmates, you first need to believe in souls. That's something science can't prove or disprove. But according to one recent study, two-thirds of Americans do believe in soulmates. For women who are currently in committed relationships, it’s even higher—82 percent. I assume this means they believe certain people in our lives were put there for a particular purpose...

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5 Strategies to Help Your College Grad Get a Job

A shiny new college diploma doesn't always result in a shiny new job. We'd all love to see our graduates land positions in the career they studied so diligently for. But often, new grads can't find a job after college.

Don't panic! Just because your grad hasn't landed a job doesn't mean he'll be unemployed forever. I'll share five strategies to help your new grad bring home a career-worthy paycheck.

#1 - Collaborate on finding a job after college

My son graduated from a small New England college this past May. He's always excelled in academics, athletics, and personal endeavors. As a tween, he yearned to have a job and make his own money. His outgoing personality and ambition, both in the classroom and on the field, have always helped him achieve.

According to the University of Washington, it can take college graduates an average of three to six months to land their first position after graduation.

My son managed college, team-life, and a part-time job successfully over the past four years. He never imagined he'd walk off-campus with his Bachelors in Science and no job to support his four-year investment in his field. Ultimately, he felt really down about himself.

He's not alone. According to the University of Washington, it can take college graduates an average of three to six months to land their first position after graduation.

The first thing his father and I did was to take him aside and let him know how much we believed in him. Our goal was to support him unconditionally. We also let him know we were going to guide the next part of his post-grad journey with love, care, and high expectations.

Shortly after graduation, we set aside time to help our son get grounded with his post-college life. We literally made a list of all the potential career opportunities he could begin to check out. This was a super helpful exercise. Between the three of us, we thought of avenues he hadn't even considered.

Professional friends offered us an excellent book recommendation—Getting from College to Career...

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