“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