Seven Deadly Synesis

Red Pen: A Grammar Podcast

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, plus stick around for (more) chatter about ChatGPT and about the most kickass Finnish film maybe ever.

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 over on the Red Pen Official Playlist.

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Chapters

1. Seven Deadly Synesis (00:00:00)

2. Agreement: Gender, number, and person (00:10:20)

3. Emphasis-dependent agreement (00:15:19)

4. Singular v. plural, and what to do about band names (00:18:55)

5. Grammatical person, the rarer conundrum (00:25:02)

6. Synesis: Agreement according to sense (00:30:15)

7. ‘Agreeance,’ Fred Durst, and the Chaucer-defense (00:37:33)

8. Track changes: Jane Austen, Chat GPT, and the word ‘supercilious’ (00:39:23)

9. Track changes: Apologies to the touring company of Rent (00:44:26)