This week Shauna and Dan are joined by 'Words Christmas Gave Us' author Grace Tierney to talk about Christmas, Boxing Day (St. Stephens Day if you are in Ireland - Do NOT make that mistake), and fun holiday traditions. Happy holidays from all of us at Bunny Trails!
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Bunny Trails: A Word History Podcast
Episode 259: Words Christmas Gave Us with Grace Tierney
Record Date: November 24, 2024
Air Date: December 18, 2024
Intro
Shauna:
Welcome to Bunny Trails, a whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase.
I’m Shauna Harrison
Dan:
And I’m Dan Pugh
Each week we take an idiom or other turn of phrase and try to tell the story from its entry into the English language, to how it’s used today.
Opening Hook
This week we’ve got something special planned for you Word Nerds. We are joined by friend of the podcast and author Grace Tierney. Her latest book, Words Christmas Gave Us, explores the influence of Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Tudors, Dickens, and of course Santa Claus on worldwide traditions, merry music, decorations, feasts, and more.
Pull on your Santa hat, make a wish, and let’s dive into the words and history of Christmas with “Words Christmas Gave Us” author, Grace Tierney
Interview
Grace, welcome back to Bunny Trails!
Grace Tierney:
I'm really happy to be here. It's great to be back with you too.
Dan Pugh:
And you have the new book, words Christmas gave us. How was writing that?
Grace Tierney:
I enjoyed it. It is very weird to write about Christmas at the wrong time of year, and obviously it took longer than a month to write it, so most of it was written at the wrong time of year. Sure. And that's a little bit peculiar, and you're chatting to friends and coming up with Christmas related facts, and they're going, why are you talking about this? It's April or , it's September. So I think a lot of people now think I'm completely insane, but, you know, that was always going to creep out into the ethos at some point. yeah, no, it’s been fun and it's a time of year that I absolutely love or I wouldn't be writing about it in the first place so I can live with it.
Dan Pugh:
Yeah, that makes sense. Wonderful. Well, you've, you've written several books about words including how to get Your name in the dictionary, words the Sea Gave Us and words the Viking gave us. So what led you to the holidays with Words Christmas gave us?
Grace Tierney:
Well, I love Christmas, but I think it probably started with a particular book. So there is a book called The Christmas book, predictably Enough by an author called Enid Blyton. So I don't know how well known she is in the United States, but she would've been a massive bestselling children's author in Britain and Ireland from about the 1940s right up to the, the current time. So sort of the British Isles version of Dr. Seuss would be my way of putting it. Okay. And she wrote hundreds of books, just masses of them. And when I was about 12, I got this secondhand. So it's a story of a family in 1950s, kind of upper middle class Britain. They have servants, which I certainly did not have growing up. And it's about them celebrating Christmas, getting ready for Christmas and celebrating it. But she's done what I call education by stealth and explain traditions like Holly Mistletoe, the Yule Log, Christmas Carol's mum plays.
Grace Tierney:
And she's explained that through the story. So the dad explains some of them and the mom explains some of them. And I just loved it. And I read it every single Christmas Eve for way longer than I'm going to admit to. And then when I had my own children, I read it to them as well. Funny enough, the copy I own doesn't actually have the last chapter, so I don't dunno how it went. . It was secondhand. Oh, do you? I have, I'm sure it was a happy ever after it was that kind of stuff, like Santa comes the whole thing. But but it really got me into, oh, I didn't know these stories about why we do the things we do at Christmas time. And that developed into a curiosity about that. And I thought, you know, that was written in the 1950s. Things have moved on, there'll be new stories. And that's, I did sort of my own version, but without the fictional family, mine's all nonfiction.
Dan Pugh:
I love hearing a lot of the traditions behind this. 'cause I know a lot of the traditions came from earlier celebrations that were already in place and then they were, were basically adopted into to what would become the more prominent holiday celebration. So I think that's really interesting seeing where all these different inspirations came from to make what, what we celebrate today. Yeah.
Shauna Harrison:
I think that's really neat. I also love that you said stealth education, by stealth. I like that storytelling to kind of teach especially about traditions and different experiences. It's a great way for people to be exposed to those things. So that's an intriguing. So I'm, I'm curious about that story as well, that, that book
Grace Tierney:
That's definitely always my approach because you can write a really dry nonfiction book and that's fine. It's a good reference book, but people aren't really going to read the whole thing, , right. We're just gonna use the index, look up one thing and put it back in the shelf. Whereas this book particularly, it's more the story and you know how it's different around the world. And you know, what we may do could be completely different to a family in another country, but, but we're still united by wanting to celebrate Christmas. And it's not even fully a religious thing. It's, it's a secular celebration as well. So I think if you have the little stories in the histories that hooks people in and they learn, but they don't realize they're learning. So that's education by stealth.
Shauna Harrison:
Wonderful. How do you think that language connects to the sense of nostalgia that people feel around Christmas?
Grace Tierney:
So there's words that we only use at Christmas, so you would never say Merry Thursday. Right?
Shauna Harrison:
Yeah, .
Grace Tierney:
Merry Christmas makes perfect sense. We know what it means. We just only ever use it at Christmas time. You're not gonna be discussing things like frankincense and the nativity in the middle of July, unless you're like me and you're writing a book about it, . But it is, a lot of the words will actually trigger little memories. You trigger warnings, but happy trigger warnings. So I can't hear the word manger without thinking about the mom of one of my childhood friends who cried every single time she heard the song Away in a Manger because it really got her in the fields because she was a mom and she was upset about the baby not having a crib .
Shauna Harrison:
Aw.
Grace Tierney:
They just couldn't listen to the word. And for Goose, it just, my parents on one occasion cooked a goose in our oven at Christmas and the oven went on fire. That was the time we nearly burned down the house on Christmas Day. So you can't say goose to anybody in my extended family without them saying, oh, do you remember ? And what I love about Christmas is we all have our little crazy things. The time Aunt Mabel did whatever with the trifle. And you know, it makes us laugh and remember good, hopefully good things. The house did not burn down, by the way, and the goose was delicious. .
Dan Pugh:
That's good. That's good.
Grace Tierney:
But you say goose and that's what I think, you know. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So you get into the nostalgia instantly when you have the words.
Dan Pugh:
I love that. What was something you learned while researching this book that didn't make it into the final edition?
Grace Tierney:
Yeah, I think you asked me this on the last book as well, and it's a sneaky one because of course we don't put everything in, you have to do some cutting, otherwise, the book would be three times the size. But also, like I said, things need to have a good story. So the word toys is not in this book. And obviously toys is a big deal at Christmas if you're a kid, but realistically, the story about the words toys is just not that exciting. , someone's like, no, that's gone. There's some sort of a story about a Christmas pickle in the United States or some areas of the United States. I couldn't verify it, so it had to go, it's probably true, but I just couldn't prove it. I really wanted to include the Wexford Carol. Wexford is an area in Ireland where I am, and it's such a beautiful carol, but I just couldn't find enough story.
Grace Tierney:
So that was gone. I wanted to put in cinnamon which comes from the inner bark of an evergreen tropical tree and is native to Sri Lanka. And that is literally all I could find out about it. . Oh wow. Cinnamon got the hea hoe, you know, so you can't put everything in. And then other stories I thought would be really, really short. And when you dig into them a bit more, you start getting more and more information and you're like, oh, wow, this is fascinating. But you can't include everything because of space. So some things got trimmed around the edges, but most of the words that I picked actually did end up in the book. Whereas sometimes I've had books where I've had to cu about a third of it because they just didn't quite fit. You know, I, I think Christmas is a more defined theme, right. So it was either in or it was out.
Dan Pugh:
Sure. That makes sense. I was born and raised in the United States and I did not know about the sometimes contentious nature of St. Stephen's Day versus Boxing Day until I read your book. So can you tell us a little more about what that day is?
Grace Tierney:
I absolutely can. So I'm gonna start by asking both of you. So the 26th of December, do you just call that the 26th of December? Do you have a day off work?
Dan Pugh:
For for me, growing up in Texas as far as family life, there was nothing special about that day other than eating a lot of leftovers and playing with the toys and things that we got. But no, it's not a federal holiday. It is as far as I have ever celebrated, we have never done anything the day after Christmas.
Shauna Harrison:
My stepmother is actually, she spent many years in the uk and so she talked about traditions around Boxing Day, but we didn't necessarily participate, but we often did something the day after Christmas as a family. So we would either find toys to donate or things like that. It was more I don't know, it was more about this kind of like sharing or passing on the, like that what we'd received. Like we received something. Yeah. So we're gonna give away something. Yeah, that's lovely. And so, yeah. But but yeah, I didn't really know that it was a specific day , you know, or anything. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Grace Tierney:
Well, I'm not surprised there's a connection to the uk 'cause the Boxing Day thing is very much UK based. And I did ask a couple of other friends from Wales and France today 'cause I happen to meet them whether they do it. So apparently in France it's not a thing at all. You don't get a day off. She now lives in Ireland and she loves the fact that we do a bit more on St. Stephen's Day. And she's primarily seen it as a ti that you do your family stuff on the 25th, but the 26th you see your friends
Shauna Harrison:
I love that
Grace Tierney:
It's Ireland, so that does tend to be in the pub, but not exclusively
Grace Tierney:
Just, just wanna say we don't all drink . Okay. But it, it's a social space. And the other lady was from Wales but had grown up in the uk so she immediately called it Boxing Day. She did not refer to it as St. Stephen's Day. And but it was more family based for her and playing the board games, eating the leftovers. Obviously they have to be eaten at some point. So it is quite a UK based thing and I think this is why it's contentious in Ireland. So I'll get to that at the end. So if you're from the uk you're, or Australia or Canada, you're almost certainly gonna call the 26th Boxing Day. And this comes from the, I very much from a charity based thing, which connects in with your stepmom. So there would've been charity boxes in the churches and people would donate during Advent during the Christmas season.
Grace Tierney:
And they were broken open on St. Stephen's Day and the alms were distributed to the the needy which is lovely. And then if you were an apprentice or I know that it's still done here with your mailman postman here, or somebody that collects your garbage or whatever, that you might give them a, a monetary tip or a tin of cookies or something as a thank you for all their work during the year. So that would be done. And sometimes again, it was a physical box, sometimes ceramic, and they would smash it open, which is always quite satisfying. like a piggy bank to get the money out. So that's lovely. And that's the Boxing Day tradition in the uk. But Ireland, you cannot call it Boxing Day . You really can't, you must call it Saint Stephen's Day. Because it is the saint the, the Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr and their feast day falls on the 26th.
Grace Tierney:
So I think what's actually going on with it is it was a way to check if you were English or Irish in descent. I think it's... So a word that you either know how to say or don't and it tells people secretly what camp you belong in. So I think it was very much if you said Boxing Day, certainly in the past in Ireland, you were probably better off maybe Presbyterian Anglican rather than Catholic. But if you said St Stephens Day, you were maybe less well off and you were Roman Catholic. Now we're not on religious lines to that extent anymore. But let me tell you, if you want to annoy an Irish person, come in particularly with an English accent and say Boxing Day about the 26th and there will be trouble . I mean, you're not gonna get hit or anything, but somebody is gonna tell you you're wrong. Right. And it's gonna be within about two seconds of you saying it. So just don't go there.
Dan Pugh:
That is very good to know.
Shauna Harrison:
Amazing. Did you encounter any older terms that you felt should make a comeback?
Grace Tierney:
Absolutely. And that's one of the parts of writing about words that I really love. I adore coming up with ones that people go, what on earth does that mean ? And then you tell them and they go, we don't have a word for that. And I was like, ah. But we do just, people aren't using it anymore. I am a big fan of expanding your vocabulary and the weirder the better. Okay. So the tagline for the blog is Unusual Words since 2009. And that's what I love. So my top three are crawmassing, scurryfunge, and Jolabokaflod . So crawmassing is to either beg for charity around town, so going out, collecting with your box, I guess. Or eating the leftovers from the feast. So maybe somebody, those lower down socially might be invited in by the land of gentry. And you can have the leftovers, which is great.
Grace Tierney:
And I think we all want to eat our leftovers because A, they're tasty. And B, it's good for the environment. So I think crawmassing needs to come back anyway. Then we have scurry fun, which is something I personally do and I suspect lots of your listeners do as well. At this time of year, it dates to the 1950s and it is the frantic rush to tidy up before guests arrive . So if you have ever shoved things under the bed into a closet, pulled over that door and locked it before your mother-in-law enters the house, you have scurryfunged, . And I do this every year.
Shauna Harrison:
Amazing.
Grace Tierney:
If you're bad housekeeper like I am Scurryfunge is the way to go.
Dan Pugh:
I believe I do that pretty much all year long. Anytime anyone's coming over, there's this frantic thing about like, they're gonna be here in like 20 minutes quick, everyone ah,
Grace Tierney:
Clean the house. I mean, you'd swear I never cleaned it the rest of the time. And of course I do. But if somebody's coming, you're suddenly conscious of that pile of books in the corner or whatever.
Shauna Harrison:
Exactly. You see all the things that need to be done .
Grace Tierney:
Yeah. That you had been overlooking for months, but now it has to be sorted. Yeah. That, that happens in my house all the time. Now the last one technically isn't English, so I know I'm stretching it a little bit. I have a Japanese word in the book as well, but I'm not going to attempt to pronounce it. But Jolabokaflod is Icelandic. So it's the book Flood. Okay. The flood of books. So this is an idea that on Christmas Eve people exchange gifts of books and it dates back to wartime rationing. So obviously they're on an island. It's harder to get supplies in and add in a world war and you're gonna have a problem. Right? So one of the few things that wasn't rationed at Christmas time was paper. And everybody gave each other books. And I absolutely love this idea A because it was a great way to get round rationing, but B, because they still do it.
Grace Tierney:
So the entire country gets a book catalog delivered by post into their house in the run up to Christmas, they pick out what they're gonna give to all their different loved ones. And on Christmas Eve you exchange the books, you know, put on the candles, light the fire curl up, and you all sit there and have a nice quiet read and just think it sounds wonderful after the rush and the scurryfunge in the run up to Christmas Eve, just sit down and relax with your book. So I think we need more of that. Yes.
Dan Pugh:
That's it. I love that. Beautiful.
Shauna Harrison:
That's like my, I want this .
Grace Tierney:
Yeah, absolutely. We are going to steal that from the Icelanders. That's what I say. Yeah,
Shauna Harrison:
Absolutely. We can share it.
Dan Pugh:
That's right. I always, I always tell my students that it's not plagiarism if you cite your work. And so as long as I cite the ice Icelanders here, it's fine.
Grace Tierney:
Absolutely. And I don't think they'd object. And apparently something like nine outta 10 Icelanders will publish a book at some point in their lives. Like they're, they're huge writers and readers in Iceland anyway, so I think they would support it.
Dan from the future here, taking a break from the interview with Grace to say thank you to our sponsors.
A Quick Thank You
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Dan Pugh:
That is awesome. Well, we know food plays a big role in holidays. So what is one of your favorite holiday traditions that relates to food
Grace Tierney:
? I had a lot to pick from . I, I kind of go to town on the food thing. I think a lot of people do. And I love making things, so a lot of it's homemade, but the one that I'm gonna talk about is gingerbread. 'cause I make that with my daughter who is now 19. So she's not the little sort of helper that she was when she first started doing this. But we basically make a massive amount of dough. It's a recipe that was given to be my, by my cousin, who sadly is no longer with us. So it's a nice way of remembering her as well when we do it. And I also collect unusual cookie cutters. So I have, I count it, I have 32 and they're all hung up in my kitchen around the window. So it's not just little gingerbread man.
Grace Tierney:
It could be a lighthouse, it could be an elephant, it could be a moose . Literally anything goes in our house a Christmas for the gingerbread. So we'll make up the dough and we just make dozens and dozens and dozens of cookies. We give them away. We eat them. And when I did the book launch in my local bookstore, I made loads of them, brought it along, told a story, and I thought, I make masses. This will be fine. We'll get loads of these home and it'll be such a nice treat to have a Christmas treat when it's not Christmas yet. I got four leftover
Shauna Harrison:
Four.
Grace Tierney:
So I obviously did too good of a job of explaining how delicious the gingerbread was. Yes.
Dan Pugh:
and a good turnout for your thing books. Yeah,
Grace Tierney:
I did. But let me tell you, they were punching above their weight, like . I didn't have hundreds at it, so it was, it was really nice that everybody enjoyed them. That was very sweet. So on the blog, I have a little download section with a few just like little freebie bits of word history. And there's one about gingerbread that gives the whole history of gingerbread and its connections. Go back to the brothers grim. They popularized it and the spices go back to the crusade. So there's, there's fabulous history in it, but the recipe is also on the dam. Oh, so awesome. You wanna know how to make it. It's online at Wordfoolery www.wordfoolery.wordpress.com.
Dan Pugh:
Awesome. That is great.
Shauna Harrison:
Do you have any Christmas traditions that you look forward to each season?
Grace Tierney:
I'm sure there are definitely people out there that go more out there than I do. I don't do the full lighting up the front of the house thing that some of my neighbor neighbors do. I have a couple lights, but I don't go crazy on it. So not everything, but I like crafting and baking and all that kind of stuff. And if you're into that, you're kind of obliged to do it. And if you have young adults in the house, they will look at you very sternly if you don't make the gingerbread . And so there's the advent calendars will be going up and the adults join in with the children on that one. So we get stuff too. We have a tradition of collecting bubbles everywhere we travel. So, and they're not necessarily bubbles. We've lots of very odd things. There's a, there's a, a Vegas gambling chip goes on the tree from one trip .
Grace Tierney:
Oh wow. Oh yeah. The weirder the better. Like but that's really nice because when we're putting the decorations up on the tree, we're remembering all the trips that we've taken together or separately. And the children who are now adults have adopted that as well. So they've done some trips with their friends and they come back and go, I got a bubble for the tree. I think there's gonna be a problem when they move out and they take half my Christmas tree bubbles with them . But we will work that out when we get to that point. , there will be, I don't know, custody arrangements over the bobble or so
Dan Pugh:
every, every other Christma
Grace Tierney:
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how we're gonna do that, but we'll think of something. It'll give us an excuse to buy a few more bobbles. We have a ridiculous quantity of bubbles, there's the making of the cranberry sauce, the gingerbread, the fudge, which they adore but is so bad for you. I look in the pot and kind of go, none of the ingredients here are good for me at any level, but I'm gonna make it anyway. And I only do it at Christmas, so that makes it a bit more special for the rest of the family. There's the pudding, there's the chestnut rolls. Like there's lots of proprietary sort of baking and making and stirring in the month beforehand. Do all my own cards. I just, I love all the makey stuff. Yeah. So we've just got loads of traditions around that. And a lot of ours focus on Christmas Eve. 'cause That was always a day that we knew we could be together. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So sometimes Christmas Day we might need to visit people or go places, but Christmas Eve we'd always make sure we, we settle down at the end of the day and we'll curl up. There'll be treats and we watch a Muppet Christmas carol together. So that's how we get into Oh,
Dan Pugh:
That's a great movie's. A I love that movie.
Grace Tierney:
Yeah, it's fabulous. And it's, it's actually really accurate to the Dickens book. So it gets marks from me on the history as well.
Dan Pugh:
I love it. I love it. How roughly how long does I'm sure varies greatly, but roughly how long since you've written several of these, you know, word, word-based books, how many of how long those take? Couple years or,
Grace Tierney:
Yeah, I get asked this a lot. So there's sort of, there's the short answer and the long answer. The short answer is about two years. Sure. But the long answer is more accurate and it's a more like five or six years because I'll start gathering words well in advance of even considering writing a book because you do not want to be halfway through a book and go, oh, that's finished and it's 20,000 words. And it, you can't publish a book with 20,000 words. That's a pamphlet.
Dan Pugh:
Right?
Grace Tierney:
Like, I'd love to do that and still get paid for it, but it won't work. And equally you don't want it to be like a massive epic fantasy, two inches thick tome either, because I, I think that would kill somebody if it fell on them in hard back first. Well, so yeah, I, I basically, I'm always gathering words. So I have this massive document and I'll categorize them in there. And when I have a sort of a good few pages of words, it's kinda like, oh, there might be a book in that. And then I'll go into a whole different phase of bringing together the stories and doing the actual research. And as you said, some of them won't end up in the book. Some will get chopped off at that stage. So I would say that usually I'm promoting one, drafting one, but I'm probably half bringing together one. And it's not just one, it's probably five or six different ones. So, so weather is definitely happening. And the one after that will definitely be Words Stories gave us, which is gonna kind of bring in things about folk tales, but also publishing and printing and words that various different authors invented, some of which are utterly hilarious. So I've got a, like, a good bit of that together, but it's not the next book, it's the book after. So I'm always looking about two or three books in advance.
Dan Pugh:
I love it. I love it. Well, where can people find more of you?
Grace Tierney:
Okay, so I'm word foolery across pretty much every social media platform. Too many social media platforms at this stage, but it's wordfoolery with an E-R-Y at the end. So wordfoolery.wordpress.com is the blog and everything kind of runs outta that 'cause that's how I got started on the history of words. So you'll be able to find the information about the various books, the newsletter, and my free downloads. For example that history of gingerbread and the recipe that I mentioned earlier. There's even a crochet pattern to do a Christmas decoration. There's a variety of different things, but they're all about the words. So wordfoolery.wordpress.com
Dan Pugh:
Outstanding. And we will link to that on the show notes and on our website as well. Well, grace, thanks for joining us. Thanks for talking to us about Words Christmas gave us, and we will recommend for everybody to go out and check out the book. And I may jump onto bookshop.org myself and get a couple of copies for upcoming Christmas gifts too.
Grace Tierney:
Well, that's great. Thanks very much. The more the merrier. And you know, just remember books are really easy to wrap . So if you're as bad at wrapping as I am, something that's rectangular really helps.
Dan Pugh:
That's very true. Have a Merry Christmas and happy every other holiday that that falls into this very fun filled December in January timeframe.
Grace Tierney:
Absolutely. Happy Christmas to you too. And in Irish, that would be "nollaig shona duit"
Wrap up
Thanks again to Grace for joining us to talk about “Words Christmas Gave Us”. If you want to hear more from our interview with Grace, check out the behind the scenes video which airs every Friday on our patreon, patreon.com/bunnytrailspod
You can buy “Words Christmas Gave Us” on Bookshop.org, which connects book buyers to independent booksellers all over the world. And of course, you can get it on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardback. If you are looking for more ways to buy it world wide, visit Grace’s website wordfoolery.wordpress.com and click My Books.
https://wordfoolery.wordpress.com/my-books/
Dan:
That’s about all we have for today. If you have any thoughts on the show
reach out to us on Patreon, patreon.com/bunnytrailspod or comment on our website bunnytrailspod.com
Shauna:
It’s poll time!
Recently we asked our Patrons… what is your favorite Winnie-the-Pooh character??
The winner was Pooh, followed closely by Eeyore and Piglet.
Dan:
This was a difficult choice for me because I like so many of them. When I was a kid, Tigger was by far my favorite. He was bouncy and energetic and unique. And I loved all of those things. And for a while I was way more on the level with Eeyore, where things were a little rough and I had a hard time seeing the point. But I kept pressing on with my head down, surviving in spite of the hardship, just like resilient Eeyore. These days I really understand Pooh bear a lot more. I'm never the smartest guy in the room, I enjoy my simple pleasures, I really like my routine, and I just want to take life at a slow, deliberate pace and get new experiences in short bursts and then go back to my safe place to rest.
Shauna:
Heather says:
Quote
My family calls me Eeyore, so thats a pretty big clue as to my personality. I do remember really loving Owl from the cartoons in the 80s. But each character has something special about them.
End Quote
I agree, Heather. Each character has something really special about them. Piglet was always a dedicated and amazing friend, Pooh has Taoist wisdom for the ages, and Eeyore always showed up despite a desire to introvert and/or his various moods. They are all very different and don't try to change one another. It's the best. As a kid, I loved that the books and the cartoons never spoke down... that is, they don't treat children like they can't understand the themes or circumstances or emotions of the characters.
My aunt introduced classic Winnie the Pooh to my kids and the collection became a favorite of my son's as well. When he was a teenager, my son told me that A.A. Milne taught him what true friendships are supposed to be. And, that it isn't worth it to hang around waiting for someone who doesn't really care about you in the hopes that they'll figure it out. Even without my own reasons, the insight it provided my son would make Winnie the Pooh and Friends one of my all-time favorite groups of characters.
Shauna:
As a reminder, our silly polls mean absolutely nothing and are not scientifically valid. And patrons of all levels, including our free tiers, can take part. Head over to patreon.com/bunnytrailspod to take this week’s poll!
And head over to bookshop.org to find Grace Tierney’s newest book, Words Christmas Gave Us at your local, independent bookseller. Or you can find all of Grace’s work including her weekly blogs and other fun word stuff at wordfoolery.wordpress.com
Outro
Shauna:
Thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you again next week. Until then remember,
Together:
Words belong to their users.
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