'Rebel With a Clause' documentary follows grammarian and author Ellen Jovin on her travels

WBUR | By Robin Young

Published July 3, 2025 at 8:45 AM PDT

Ellen Jovin operates her grammar table. (Courtesy of Brandt Johnson)

For a couple of decades, Ellen Jovin co-ran a communication company with her husband to help executives better express themselves. Then, in 2018, outside a subway station in New York, she set up a folding table and put up a sign, and the grammar table was born.

Reviews compared it to Lucy’s therapy stall in “The Peanuts” or the “Ask Ann Landers” advice column. Jovin then took the table on the road, setting it up in 50 states, and eventually writing the book “Rebel With a Clause,” answering questions she’d heard on the road, from “What’s the Oxford comma?” to the debate over split infinitives.

Now, Jovin’s husband, Brandt Johnson, has made a documentary about that road trip. It’s called “Rebel With a Clause.”

Here & Now‘s Robin Young has spoken to Jovin throughout the years and sat down with both her and Johnson at a screening of the documentary for the Boston Film Festival.

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Robin Young produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Young also produced it for the web.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.