{"id":5911,"date":"2016-07-21T07:01:20","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T11:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5911"},"modified":"2016-07-21T11:08:54","modified_gmt":"2016-07-21T15:08:54","slug":"between-you-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5911","title":{"rendered":"***Between You and Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MaryBy Mary Norris \u2013 This book\u2014part history of language, part grammarians\u2019 bible, part punctilious punctuation-snob puncturer\u2014by a veteran New Yorker<\/em> copy editor attempts to explain why writers in English, particularly those whose work appears in The New Yorker<\/em>, make the choices they do. Form, not content, is her subject. While that publication is notoriously picky about copy matters, Norris\u2019s anecdote-rich text suggests how much elasticity actually exists within its seemingly constricting rules.<\/p>\n

Particularly entertaining are the early sections that include a review of her checkered, pre-New Yorker<\/em> work experience. (You can\u2019t really call a stint as a milk-truck driver and costume shop clerk a career for a person who did graduate work in English.)<\/p>\n

Norris took her title from the common grammar mistake people make in using \u201cI\u201d when \u201cme\u201d is required. I yell at the radio when I hear the awful \u201cbetween you and I\u201d or \u201cHe invited Tom and I . . .\u201d I suspect Norris does too.<\/p>\n

Several chapters cover the ongoing punctuation wars. No surprise, as the subtitle of the book is Confessions of a Comma Queen<\/em>. In the comma skirmish, I find I fight on the side of \u201cplaying by ear,\u201d dropping in a comma where I sense a pause. And in hyphen disputes, her emphasis on clarity of meaning seems a useful approach. Thus the hyphen in milk-truck driver above.<\/p>\n

Some of the text on verbs got away from me and her suggestion for how to tell whether a sentence needs \u201cwho\u201d or \u201cwhom\u201d (for the straggling soldiers in that lost battle), her system was overly complex or not explained clearly. I\u2019ll stick with mine.<\/p>\n

\"pencils\"

photo: Vladimer Shioshvili, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

The very best chapter was devoted to Norris\u2019s love of pencils. Extra-soft No.1 pencils, in fact. The kind of pencil that has also kindled a love of pencil sharpeners. (I\u2019ve served time in innumerable meeting rooms over the years and can tell you that The Ford Foundation\u2019s black pencils, embossed with its name, and the round ones of the L\u2019Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C., which come in easter egg pastels, are the best. Whenever I attended meetings there, I stocked up.)<\/p>\n

Reading anyone\u2019s description of something they are both passionate and deeply knowledgeable about\u2014making wine, say, or 1950s automobiles\u2014is always interesting, and you learn as much about the person as about their particular interest. I don\u2019t ever have to read about pencils again, but I\u2019m glad I did.
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