Ben Yagoda

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Ben Yagoda
Ben Yagoda.jpg
Yagoda speaking at the Third Coast Audio Festival, 21 October 2005
Born (1954-02-22) February 22, 1954 (age 71)
Alma mater Yale University;
University of Pennsylvania
Notable credit(s) The New Leader , The New York Times , Newsweek , Rolling Stone

Ben Yagoda (born February 22, 1954) is an American writer and educator. He is a professor of journalism and English at the University of Delaware.

Contents

Early life and education

Born in New York City to Louis Yagoda (1909–1990), a labor mediator and arbitrator with the New York State Mediation Board, visiting lecturer at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and a former organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and Harriet (née Lewis), [1] [2] he grew up in New Rochelle, New York. He entered Yale University to study English in 1971 and graduated in 1976 with a bachelor of arts. He later earned an M.A. in American civilization at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1991. [3]

Career

He became a freelance journalist for publications such as The New Leader , The New York Times , Newsweek , and Rolling Stone . He has published a number of books including About Town: The New Yorker and the World it Made.

Besides his work as a journalism and English professor at the University of Delaware, Yagoda also writes occasionally for a New York Times blog about the English language. [4] He also wrote an article on Henry W. Fowler and his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage for The New Yorker. [5]

He currently has a monthly podcast called The Lives They're Living with Ben Yagoda.

Personal life

Yagoda resides in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, with his wife. They have two daughters.

Selected bibliography

Notes

  1. McFadden, Robert D. (5 September 1975). "School Talks Mediator". The New York Times.
  2. Fowler, Glenn (15 November 1990). "Louis Yagoda, 81, Ex-Arbitrator; Assisted in Major Labor Disputes". The New York Times.
  3. "People". Department of English. University of Delaware. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  4. Ben Yagoda blog posts at The New York Times
  5. Yagoda, Ben. "Don't Say It Like That: A Legendary Usage Guide is Turning a Hundred". The New Yorker, September 29, 2025, pp. 54-59. Published online as "The Autocrat of English Usage"