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Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by Mary Norris
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“Hilarious. . . . This book charmed my socks off.” ―Patricia O’Conner, New York Times Book Review
Mary Norris has spent more than three decades in The New Yorker's copy department, maintaining its celebrated high standards. Now she brings her vast experience, good cheer, and finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice.
Between You & Me features Norris's laugh-out-loud descriptions of some of the most common and vexing problems in spelling, punctuation, and usage―comma faults, danglers, "who" vs. "whom," "that" vs. "which," compound words, gender-neutral language―and her clear explanations of how to handle them. Down-to-earth and always open-minded, she draws on examples from Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and the Lord's Prayer, as well as from The Honeymooners, The Simpsons, David Foster Wallace, and Gillian Flynn. She takes us to see a copy of Noah Webster's groundbreaking Blue-Back Speller, on a quest to find out who put the hyphen in Moby-Dick, on a pilgrimage to the world's only pencil-sharpener museum, and inside the hallowed halls of The New Yorker and her work with such celebrated writers as Pauline Kael, Philip Roth, and George Saunders.
Readers―and writers―will find in Norris neither a scold nor a softie but a wise and witty new friend in love with language and alive to the glories of its use in America, even in the age of autocorrect and spell-check. As Norris writes, "The dictionary is a wonderful thing, but you can't let it push you around."
- Sales Rank: #27256 in Books
- Brand: W W Norton Company
- Published on: 2016-04-04
- Released on: 2016-04-04
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.30" h x .70" w x 5.60" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
Features
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of April 2015: Once upon a time, a couple or few decades ago, most American boys and girls in grade school were taught grammar and punctuation; we learned, for example, that “i” came before “e,” except after “c” (except sometimes, but never mind) and that the verb “to be” was “like an equal sign,” which meant that you used the nominative case (have I lost you yet?) on both sides of it. (“It is I,” in other words, is the correct, if dowdy, response to “Who’s there?”) Some of us were even taught to diagram sentences; some had parents who corrected us at the family dinner table. (I can still hear my father pressing the subjunctive upon me. “If I WERE,” he’d bellow, when I allowed as how there’d be later curfews if I “was” in charge.) Whether they retained the lessons or not, most people probably don't wax romantic about the grammar lessons or teachers of yore.
Which is why even those of you who don’t have the soul of a second-grade grammar teacher will love Between You and Me, the hilarious and delightful “memoir” by the longtime New Yorker copy editor, Mary Norris, who confides in the subtitle that she is a “comma queen.” (The above is not a full sentence, I know -- but I think I can get away with it by calling it "my style." Also, I put quotation marks around the word “memoir,” Mary – I know you’re wondering -- because I was trying to make the point that your book is an unusual take on the form, dealing as it does with thats and whiches as well as with your Ohio adolescence as a foot-checker at the local pool.) Who knew grammar could be so much fun -- that silly marks of punctuation could be so wickedly anthropomorphized (a question mark is like a lazy person), that dashes grow in families (there are big dashes and little dashes and they can all live peaceably within one sentence), that there was once a serious movement to solve the he-or-she problem with the catchall “heesh”? Clearly, Norris knows: her book is plenty smart, but it’s its (one’s a contraction, one’s a possessive) joyful, generous style that makes it so winning. This is a celebration of language that won’t make anyone feel dumb – but it’s also the perfect gift for the coworker you haven’t been able to tell that “between” is a preposition that never, ever, takes an object that includes the pronoun “I.” – Sara Nelson
Review
“Ms. Norris, who has a dirty laugh that evokes late nights and Scotch, is…like the worldly aunt who pulls you aside at Thanksgiving and whispers that it is all right to occasionally flout the rules.” (Sarah Lyall - New York Times)
“[P]ure porn for word nerds.” (Allan Fallow - Washington Post)
“Mary Norris has an enthusiasm for the proper use of language that’s contagious. Her memoir is so engaging, in fact, that it’s easy to forget you’re learning things.” (People)
“Wonderfully confiding.” (Miriam Krule - Slate)
“[A] winningly tender, funny reckoning with labor and language.” (Megan O'Grady - Vogue)
“Funny and endearing.” (Joanna Connors - Cleveland Plain Dealer)
“Laugh-out-loud funny and wise and compelling from beginning to end.” (Steve Weinberg - Houston Chronicle)
“Smart and funny and soulful and effortlessly illuminating.” (Ian Frazier)
“Mary Norris brings a tough-minded, clear-eyed, fine-tuned wisdom to all the perplexities and traps and terrors of the English sentence.” (Adam Gopnik)
“Mary Norris is a grammar geek with a streak of mischief, and her book is obscenely fun.” (Marilyn Johnson)
“This is as entertaining as grammar can be. Very very. Read it and savor it.” (Garrison Keillor)
“Mary Norris is the verbal diagnostician I would turn to for a first, second, or third opinion on just about anything.” (John McPhee, in The New Yorker)
“Destined to become an instant classic…. It’s hard to imagine the reader who would not enjoy spending time with Norris.” (Christian Science Monitor)
About the Author
Mary Norris began working at The New Yorker in 1978. Originally from Cleveland, she now lives in New York.
Most helpful customer reviews
231 of 249 people found the following review helpful.
Good writing and bad...
By Jill Meyer
Mary Norris, a copy editor for The New Yorker has written a book, "Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen" which is a lot about grammar and a bit about her life and her job. I really can't believe that I am writing a review and tempting Ms Norris to judge my woebegone grammar!
Ms Norris's book is not a grammar textbook and she's really quite gentle on everyday speaking and writing. She discusses some punctuation that we all use - I really don't think she likes writing with dashes - and gives us examples of the good and the bad. (Let me say right up front that I couldn't write without using dashes and that's my excuse for using them! But I'm not writing for The New Yorker, and thanks god for that.) Ms Norris quotes a note Jacqueline Kennedy wrote to Richard Nixon after her husband's death. The note was dashed off in that breathy style with which she spoke - full of dashes to keep her thoughts somewhat straight. Norris takes the same note and "corrects" it. The result was a grammatical correct message, but one lacking in Mrs Kennedy's distinctive style. Would Richard Nixon want correctness - or heart? I know which one I'd want!
Ms Norris's book is great fun to read, while learning some "Ps" and "Qs". There are some swear words in the text; it's not offensive but just surprising. Now, in this review, I've tried to use most of the punctuation she writes about. Let's hope I'm using it correctly!
120 of 130 people found the following review helpful.
Two Stars, But Add a Star if You...
By Samuel D. Uretsky
This is one of those add a star if you.... reviews. Mary Norris is a copy editor at the New Yorker magazine, which is probably the pinnacle of the profession. In a magazine, the copy editor is the enforcer, the person who assures that the standards for grammar, spelling and word usage are followed. The New Yorker publishes some of the best writers, its fact checking is the best in the industry, and its editors (with the exception of Tina Brown) are also among the finest in the industry. This may not mean much to people who don't care for the magazine, but for those of us who are long time followers of The New Yorker, this two-star book becomes a three star just for the insights it gives into a little seen aspect of the publication.
A great deal of the book is devoted to discussion of grammar and punctuation -- again a topic which most people aren't interested in. Most of us learn to speak and write as young children, and our understanding of the basic rules is inculcated along with the superego. Add a star if you care to review the proper use of the semi colon or pronoun selection.
Finally, there's Ms. Norris herself, who looks as if she should be devoting her life to perfecting the chocolate chip cookie, discussing her search for a source of #1 (soft lead) pencils, and revealing what for most of us will be new information about the two-hole pencil sharpener. Her charm should be good for the fifth star.
In other words, this is a wonderful book if all conditions are met. If you don't care for the magazine, could not care less about the future of the apostrophe, and have no interest in the properties of pencil erasers, you'll probably skip chapters and consider this book a waste of time and money. But, if all conditions are met, Between You and Me is a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours.
99 of 105 people found the following review helpful.
A great read
By Kelly
I’ve got a bad habit of buying books about the history and proper usage of the English language and not reading them. I’ve got a shelf in my home library that’s attractively stacked with books like Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way and Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog by Kitty Burns Florey. I tend to read the first few pages, enjoy them as much as I expect to, then get distracted by some work of fiction or other. I’m terrible about nonfiction, even if it’s on a topic I’m very interested in. But Between You & Me was a Goodreads win, and I’m more likely to win other titles if I read and review this one, so I had a bit more motivation than usual. Also…well, it didn’t hurt that Mary Norris is so funny. Witness the following examples and tell me you don’t want to read this book, too:
“Whom” may indeed be on the way out, but so is Venice, and we still like to go there.
and
Chances are that if you use the Oxford comma you brush the crumbs off your shirtfront before going out.
Between You & Me covers such topics as spelling, punctuation, and profanity in a direct and easily-understood manner. Norris makes frequent mention of the ways that style and usage vary between major publications such as The New Yorker (where she’s worked since 1978) and The New York Times. There’s even an entire chapter dedicated to pencils and pencil sharpeners! (This might sound boring to you, but if it doesn’t, we should probably be friends.)
I learned from this book, and I enjoyed myself immensely while reading it. It’s made me want to pick up my next work of nonfiction sooner than the usual schedule (which would be maybe in six months or so?). It made me want to buy, read, and annotate/highlight a style guide to learn even more. I have an advance copy, but I’m tempted to buy a finished copy — partially to support the author, but also because the advance copy doesn’t include the Recommended Reading list. (Yes, I am that much of a nerd. I want to do the background reading!)
All in all: A great read for anyone with a sense of humor who’s also interested in usage, and a particularly great graduation gift for an English major.
Note: I received a review copy of this book.
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