5 Ways to Instantly Sound Smarter + Mrs. Abbett’s Embarrassing Story

I am SO excited about this podcast because it kicks off a mini-series called “5 Ways to Instantly Sound Smarter.” In it, we’re going over 5 of the most common grammatical mistakes that — for better or for worse — people get rather judgmental about.

And don’t worry. I’m not going to be like, “To fix this, go buy a copy of the MLA Handbook.” Ugh. No.

We can fix each issue in the length of a podcast, and I’ll do my best to make them easy to remember!

The first way to instantly sound smarter?

Master the difference between “good” and “well”!

People tend to use “good” for everything, so you hear sentences like, “It was a really good game! I thought I played pretty good.”

BUT WAIIIIIIIIIT.

GOOD describes THINGS. 

WELL describes things that people DO.

(If you want to get fancy, “good” describes nouns and “well” describes verbs, but let’s not make this any harder than it needs to be!)

So you CAN’T have played “good” in the game because it is impossible to play “good.” PLAYING is something that people DO, so you played WELL.

Yikes. That was a lot of grammar. Want to hear how I royally embarrassed myself on this subject?

Tune into the podcast below!

Today’s is all about how I royally embarrassed myself on this issue on a train to Rome. It won’t make sense until you’ve listened to the podcast though! You can listen below, or on your favorite player, then come back to read it.

And here’s the journal entry I mentioned in the podcast!

Keep Going!

5 Ways to Instantly Sound Smarter, Part 2

5 Ways to Instantly Sound Smarter, Part 3

5 Ways to Instantly Sound Smarter, Part 4

5 Ways to Instantly Sound Smarter, Part 5