Eleven newsletters about the English language

I have scoured the interwebs for you and have found 11 newsletters about the English language. Not about language learning, or language teaching (those exist too, and will be a subject for another article), but newsletters for people who love language and love reading about it.

Newsletters are almost as old as the internet, but at the same time they are hip and happening. As social media becomes more fragmented, many people are turning to newsletters to stay in touch with the people and subjects that they are interested in. And the subject that I am interested in is English!

Here they are, in alphabetical order:

Brian Garner’s Usage Tips

Brian Garner writes the bible for American-English editors: Garner’s Modern English Usage. His almost-daily newsletter is basically just a tip from this book. It also advertises his books and seminars. A great newsletter if you are an American editor. Otherwise, probably not for you (May 2023).

Frequency: every 1 or 2 days

Cost: free. The newsletter includes unobtrusive ads.

Sign up here

Collins Dictionary Newsletter

Collins is one of the first online dictionaries I look at when I need to check a word. I find it is nicely up to date and I like the way I can easily compare American and British English.

Their newsletter is a collection of the week’s blog posts, which is stuff like “11 craic-ing words for St Patrick’s Day”, their words of the day, Spanish and French words of the day, and something from the English learner’s blog.

I recommend this newsletter to people who speak English as a second language and are looking to improve. (Mar 2023)

Frequency: once a week

Cost: free

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English in Progress

English in Progress provides a list of links and summaries to free-to-read articles from around the web about English language change and world Englishes.

There’s also lexicography: a list of neologisms and updates every time a dictionary adds new words.

This newsletter is read by English teachers, academics, and people who are interested in language change.

I can’t really give a review because this is my newsletter 😉 But I have a little feedback thingy at the end and everybody who clicks it is very positive, so I guess it is at least okay. (Mar 2023)

Frequency: once a month

Cost: free

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Grammar Girl

Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty uses her weekly newsletter to summarise her latest podcast, pick an interesting article about common language mistakes from her archive, and provide links to interesting things she’s been reading (that’s my favourite bit).

The newsletter is “just” a sidekick to Grammar Girl’s podcasts, books and website, but Mignon makes sure that there are always a few things there to make it worth a read. (May 2023)

Frequency: once a week

Cost: free

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Haggard Hawks

Paul Anthony Jones, a.k.a. Haggard Hawks, is most well known for his Twitter profile and his books. The newsletter has only just started up again, and we’re looking forward to reading it!

In his own words “this little linguistic recap will be back in your inbox every other weekend or so, packed as always with all kinds of wordy nourishment. That might be a little news, some extra background on something from the @HaggardHawks feed, or perhaps just a few things that may have passed you by.” (June 2023)

Frequency: once every two weeks

Cost: free

Sign up here

Learned

Learned is a newsletter on etymology and other fascinating language titbits by Joel Neff. Written in a conversational style, Neff is very honest when he encounters language content he doesn’t understand, and takes us along for the journey as he tries to understand it. (Mar 2023)

Frequency: once a week

Cost: 5 dollars a month or 55 a year, one free public post a week

Sign up here

Lingwistics

New-Zealand based linguist Ken Grace takes an interesting word from the English language, like “gig”, “crash blossom”, or “youse”, and discusses it.

Frequency: once a week

Cost: free, access to archive and occasional paid posts for subscription fee

Sign up here

Mister Slang

Jonathon Green is a force in the world of etymology. He is the leading specialist, and perhaps the only specialist, in historical slang. He’s created an amazing online historical slang dictionary and in his newsletter he discusses an interesting fact from his huge knowledge base about the people who spoke slang and the works that included it.

Frequency: once a week

Cost: free

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Separated by a Common Newsletter

Lynne Murphy wrote the excellent book The Prodigal Tongue about the difference between American and British English. She also writes the blog Separated by a Common Language which is my go-to page whenever I think something might be too American or British for the British-but-for-international-readers English I try to write.

Her newsletter is a nice mix of personal news, language titbits and links to other language-related content that Lynne recommends (she even recommended my newsletter once, she clearly has great taste!) (Mar 2023)

Frequency: about every three weeks

Cost: free

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Subtitle

The Subtitle newsletter belongs to the splendid Subtitle podcast. Both the podcast and the newsletter are about languages in general, but I have decided that there is just enough content about English to warrant being added to this list 🙂

The newsletter has a selection of lingo news, podcast recommendation and linguistic titbits, all described with zest by newsletter-writer Allison. (June 2023)

Frequency: every two weeks

Cost: free

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Word Sauce

Word Sauce is written by the makers of the word game League of the Lexicon, Kickstarter’s most backed word game. Instead of it being just a vehicle to promote their game, they write “our aim is to make it that rare thing: a newsletter you want to read“. I think we can safely say they succeeded.

It is filled with curious etymology, interesting historical words and other fun stuff about English. (June 2023)

Frequency: once a month (though less often in practice)

Cost: free

Sign up here

Any more I should add?

Do you know of a newsletter I should add to this list? Let me know in the comments!

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