Grimer Girl here, I'm Minion Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to

the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and cool stuff. Today, we'll

talk about what the term op ed really means and about how long you should make your paragraphs.

But before we start, I want to correct two recent mispronunciations. First, I said the

name of the character in the book The Barrowers as a rioty, when it is in fact, aria-ty. And second,

in a much larger infraction, I mispronounced mischievous as mischievous, and I am so sorry,

I know that bugs a lot of people now. I remember as I was recording it, wondering if I had it right,

but I didn't go back and check. Bad, bad. I've heard it both ways my whole life, but the correct

pronunciation is definitely mischievous. And here's how I'm going to remember that from now on,

and maybe it'll help some of you. I'm going to think of the actor Chevy Chase. He's mischievous,

and his name Chevy sounds a lot like the middle part of mischievous. That'll help me, I hope

it helps you. And now, onto the rest of the show. The New York Times is changing the name of

its op-ed section to guest essays. It's an interesting move, but it reminded me of something many

people don't know about the term op-ed. It stands for opposite editorial, not opinion editorial,

as many people think. And opposite editorial refers to the piece's physical position in the newspaper,

not the opinions being opposite of the newspaper's opinions, as some other people think.

These commentaries, guest essays, simply run on the page opposite the editorial page. And that's

one reason the New York Times is changing the name. In the digital world, many people aren't reading

the guest essays on a physical page that's opposite the editorial page, so it's not a very

accurate or descriptive term anymore. Although the New York Times didn't start running an op-ed

page until 1970, the term goes back to at least 1924, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The concept of a page that lives opposite the editorial page and features opinions from outside

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