I have been accused of being, without too much protestation on my part, a grammar Nazi. Among the written and spoken Wolverine’s-nails-on-a-chalkboard high/low points for me are people who “try and do” something (you can’t both “try” and “do” — if you “do,” you by definition were “trying” — it’s “try to do”) ; those who muddle up “yeah” (casual “yes”), “yea” (formal “yes” as used in legislative votes) and “yay” (“I’m happy and excited!); and, the most grating of all, the linguistic blasphemy that is “daylight-savingS time” (no second “s.”)
So I love books like Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by Mary Norris, the doyenne of copy editors, having toiled in that position for more than 30 years at The New Yorker. It’s an informative, witty read that tackles some of the biggest issues of our day — forget building a border wall, how about building sentences that properly use dashes and semicolons? You’ll learn a lot and laugh a lot in 204 breezy pages.
Just thumbing back through the book now to write this makes me want to say — pop quiz, hotshot — “yeah,” “yea” or “yay.” You decide.
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