“If commas are open to interpretation, hyphens are downright Delphic.”
Mary Norris“If commas are open to interpretation, hyphens are downright Delphic.”
Mary Norris“The better the writer, the more complicated the dangler.”
Mary Norris, Between You Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen“Was it an insult to be called a “woman writer”? Didn’t it have a taint of, say, the “woman driver”?”
Mary Norris, Between You Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen“So many things in language can never be known or settled or explained, except by custom.”
Mary Norris, Between You Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen“Nobody knows everything—one of the pleasures of language is that there is always something new to learn—and everybody makes mistakes.”
Mary Norris, Between You Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen“Those extra letters dangling at the ends of words are the genitalia of grammar.”
Mary Norris, Between You Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen