Questions About Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen

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Answered Questions (2)

Was there an error of grammar on page 72, when Ms. Norris states: “Dee was two years younger than me, . . .”? Shouldn’t the “me” be “I”?

Jill this isn't an error! In Latin, it's called the ablative of comparison (following the word "than"), so it's still an object (me).
Adding "to be" to the…morethis isn't an error! In Latin, it's called the ablative of comparison (following the word "than"), so it's still an object (me).
Adding "to be" to the end would change the sentence so it's not just "she was older than me" but "she was older than I was"--comparing what she was, and what I was, as opposed to her versus me.
Hope this makes sense!
- a Classicist and copyeditor :)(less)

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Wonder where she learned her grammar? Catholic hiigh school is referenced. Did she have any grammar in college beyond English 100?

Minnesinger Norris answers many questions in a PBS NEWSHOUR interview with Jeffrey Brown which aired tonight and is now online at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/n …moreNorris answers many questions in a PBS NEWSHOUR interview with Jeffrey Brown which aired tonight and is now online at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/new-yo...

She said that adults ask her all the time whether they should use a serial comma or not. She joked that it is "not a moral decision"; just be consistent. She decided in part to write her book to help the "grammatically insecure"--which is most of us, Jeffrey Brown quipped.

She prefers to use the serial comma because it "prevents ambiguity." She used the following sentence as an example: "We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin." Without the comma after "JFK": "We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin." (Implying that JFK and Stalin are the strippers. ;)

She then showed an image of a T-shirt bearing the message "Commas save lives" preceded by the sentences "We ate, Grandma." and "We ate Grandma."

Clearly this copyeditor has a sense of humor!

Norris decries critics who think copyeditors are pedantic and wield a pencil as a weapon. She stresses that a good copyeditor will know when to leave well enough alone, will recognize, for example, when an author is using incorrect grammar intentionally to reflect how an uneducated character speaks.

I have yet to read her book, but have a good sense of its tone after seeing the interview tonight. Anyone willing to wear a friend's handmade crown of dangling commas on national television has a healthy sense of the absurd. ;)(less)

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Unanswered Questions (1)

Who else was particularly annoyed about the transphobia chapter? It personally annoyed me that she refered to her sister as her brother when introducing her to the narrative/book. I wonder if she asked her sister how she would've liked to have been refered to in her book or if she just assumed. It felt incredibly tone deaf & self-congratulatory to me.

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