Where language was in the news this week …

Grammar Girl (aka Mignon Fogerty) appeared on the Today Show on Wednesday. Take her quiz that contained all the discussion topics she suggested to the producers. (I couldn’t find a correct answer to Question No. 2; please comment below if you think one of the answers to that question was grammatically correct – and why…)

Bronwen Clune, in The Guardian’s comment section, argued that grammatical elitism helps no one, especially as “it functions to socially exclude others based on class, education or luck, whether people are aware of it or not.”

Comedian Jimmy Fallon and Paul McCartney switched accents on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. That was actually pretty funny.

Canadian writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature, as the BBC reports. She is only the 13th woman to win the prize since its inception in 1901.

Ooops! The Vatican needs a new proofreader. After commissioning a new medal to commemorate the pontificate of Pope Francis, it spotted a rather unfortunate spelling error (clue: the name of Our Lord was spelled with an L). The Huffington Post reported on this ungodly boo-boo.

Which opera character raises his (or her) glass with the following words: “Let pleasure guide us from cups to kisses … to weep for the dead is senseless grief … Let wine and pleasure shine and cheer us.” Find out by reading about the top five Verdi opera drinking toasts (in this, Verdi’s birthday week) on WQXR’s Operavore blog.