The New Yorker<\/em>. (Please notice that there\u2019s a comma before the last \u201cand\u201d in the series in that last sentence.)<\/p>\nNorris deals with such things as the \u201cen\u201d dash and the \u201cem\u201d dash, both created to mimic the width of the respective letters, and she goes into the ongoing argument about whether pronouns in English are sexist. The chapter is called, \u201cThe Problem of Heesh.\u201d I think she probably agrees with me that this isn\u2019t a serious problem \u2013 all you have to do is use the plural and the problem disappears. Norris sums up, \u201cI hate to say it, but the colloquial use of \u2018their\u2019 when you mean \u2018his or her\u2019 is just wrong.\u201d Then she adds, \u201cSing in me, o Muse, of that small minority of men who are secure enough in their masculinity to use the feminine third-person singular.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also notes that our problems are nowhere near as serious as those encountered with German, where everything has a gender: das Boot (boat) is neuter, der Tisch (table) is masculine, and die Katz (cat) is feminine. Good lord, even the word for maiden \u2013 das Madchen \u2013 in German is neuter; shouldn\u2019t that be something to complain about?<\/p>\n
Every writer about language seems to have an ax to grind, and Norris\u2019 ax shows up in the title of her book. The proper usage is \u201cbetween you and me,\u201d not \u201cbetween you and I.\u201d A good many people apparently believe that the word \u201cme\u201d can\u2019t possibly be right in a formal setting, she notes, but they\u2019re wrong. You\u2019ll understand that if you simply reverse the phrase: \u201cBetween I and you\u201d can\u2019t possibly be right, and it isn\u2019t. Along this line, you might note the overuse of \u201cmyself,\u201d when the speaker really means \u201cme.\u201d<\/p>\n
I had a little quibble with Norris\u2019 chapter on Herman Melville, in which she lets him get away with using \u201claid\u201d instead of \u201clay\u201d for the past tense of \u201clie,\u201d but it\u2019s a minor thing. Melville does use \u201clain,\u201d a word that is about to disappear, correctly. And there\u2019s a lot more here, including a copy editor (not Norris) who became a millionaire; such things apparently are possible. In sum, I had a good time with this book. If you like language, you will, too. (Note that last comma.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For decades, I unquestioningly followed Associated Press and newspaper style when it comes to, among other things, commas: There should not be a comma before the last “and” in a series. In recent years, however, I have discovered that there is a rebellion brewing among the younger generation. Many of my journalism students at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,697],"tags":[699,698,700],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary-nonfiction","category-grammar-and-writing","tag-commas","tag-grammar","tag-mary-norris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1657,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions\/1657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/between.jpg\" "\\"between\\"")
<\/a>You have probably gathered by now that this is another of those wonderful books about language \u2013 these dashes are in place of a comma, which I\u2019m not sure about here \u2013 and the use and misuse of it. The book is somewhat in the pattern of Eats, Shoots and Leaves<\/em>, Lynne Truss\u2019 2006 book that was subtitled, \u201cThe Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.\u201d And Norris is just as funny as Truss, though I don\u2019t think she\u2019s quite as strict. Her first chapter is \u201cSpelling is for Weirdos,\u201d and she says the book is \u201cfor all of you who want to feel better about your grammar.\u201d There\u2019s also a chapter about profanity, which you probably shouldn\u2019t read if it bothers you.<\/p>\n