I'm a young Fogarty and this week I have a quick and dirty tip about healthy versus healthful.

I have a meaty middle by Ethan Sawyer about how to write the best SAT essay ever.

And I'll help you write other kinds of essays too.

And I have a tidbit by Samantha Enslyn about what it means to say someone has played fast

and loose.

You can learn to write better emails, blog entries, presentations and more, and you'll

save $200 by visiting mpross.com slash grammar girl and using the promo code grammar girl.

Today's quick and dirty tip is about healthy versus healthful.

The problem is that some people insist that you can't say your salad is healthy.

You have to say it's healthful because only healthful can mean conducive to good health.

The thinking is that only a living thing can be healthy.

If we're in good health, you and I can describe ourselves as healthy.

Healthy is a personal characteristic.

But things that are dead, things we consume like a salad, aren't healthy anymore.

If they're good for us, they're healthful.

Here's a joke from an 1895 usage guide that plays on this kind of thinking.

The physician implied precise English when to the inquiry whether oysters were healthy

at certain seasons, he replied, I've never heard one complain of an ache or an ale.

That was the thinking in the 1800s when usage and etiquette writers railed against healthy

and recommended healthful or wholesome.

Of course, these were the same people who said you should call a woman's garment a gown

and not a dress.

...