Grammar Girl here. I'm Minyeon Fugherty and today I have a quick and dirty tip about when

to use prior to and when to just use the word before. And I have an amazing story about

people who wake up from head injuries speaking a new language that really does happen. And

finally I have some featured listeners. Let's start with the tip.

Player 2 is an acceptable idiom, but when you're tempted to use it, fight the urge. In

almost all cases before is the better choice. For example, you could say prior to becoming

an award-winning clown, Bob was an accountant. But it's better to keep it simple and just

say, before becoming an award-winning clown, Bob was an accountant. If you've watched

one of my webinars, you may have heard me talk about keeping your language simple and

clear by choosing words with Anglo-Saxon origins instead of words with Latin origins. And

this is one of those cases. Prior to has Latin roots and before has Anglo-Saxon roots.

And before just sounds more direct. I actually can't think of a sentence where you'd have

to use prior to instead of before. If you can, leave a comment on the web page for this

segment at quickinteritytips.com. But that's your quickinterity tip. If you're tempted

to use the phrase prior to, use the word before instead. It's not a rule, but it's a good

style choice. And now on to head injury-induced language changes. When 16-year-old soccer

goalkeeper, Ruben Nisamo, from Georgia, recently dove for a ball. He didn't see the foot

that eventually collided with his head. That kick put the Brockwood High School athlete

into a three-day coma. After Nisamo finally awoke in the hospital, he could speak fluent

Spanish. However, before the head injury, the only language he could speak fluently was

English, which he seemed to have forgotten according to WSB-TV. As he began to remember

how to speak in English, his knowledge of Spanish began to fade. Nisamo's case is

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