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
Thing 2: Mike Laws
Producer: Amanda Darrach

Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist.
To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS.

Show Notes:
A scrappy newspaper’s final cover lacks Voice, Alexandria Neason, CJR
Journalists are fed up with requests to be ‘on background’ or ‘off the record,’ Ted Kitterman, PR Daily
Artforum Fires Top Editor After Its Open Letter on Israel-Hamas War, Zachary Small, The New York Times
Both Sides Now, Amanda Darrach, CJR

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: Mike Laws

Producer: Amanda Darrach

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 with killer tans, fresh Trapper Keepers—and an exciting slate of guests. Till then!

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.

To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS.

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.

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.

To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS.

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.

To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS.

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, and Mike, of course (of course!). 

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.

To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS.

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, who knows where we'd be?)

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.

To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS.

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, Mike, and Amanda are here with a list of everyday pleonasms to keep an ear out for.

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.

To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS.

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). Plus, more on everyone's favorite lovably fallible chatbot.

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.

To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS.

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, blasting out iMessages at 5am, responding "k" vs. "kk" vs. "ok," and… winking? Plus stick around after the bell rings for a spirited chat about fad diets.

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.

To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on Apple Podcasts for macOS.

Show notes:
The New Etiquette Rules, Story of the Week with Joel Stein
Do You Know How to Behave? Are You Sure? How to text, tip, ghost, host, and generally exist in polite society today. The Cut