“Henry W. Fowler believed he knew how sentences should read—and his judgments have shaped The New Yorker’s style for a century.”
grammar
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Exclaim!
The exclamation point attracts enormous (and undue) amounts of flak for its unabashed claim to presence in the name of emotion which some unkind souls interpret as egotistical attention-seeking.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Will Podcasts and Video Journalism Make Our Syntax Less Rich?
The days of the long, sinuous, multi-clause sentence might be numbered.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Rise and Fall of the English Sentence
Writing has made our syntax richer and more complex — and also increasingly distinct from spoken language.
Posted inNonfiction
Stories of Punctuation and Typographic Marks: A Reading List
Recommended reads on six punctuation marks, from the comma to the asterisk.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
In Honor of National Grammar Day: What It Was Like to Copy-Edit Pauline Kael
When Pauline Kael typed “prevert” instead of “pervert,” she meant “prevert” (unless she was reviewing something by Jacques Prévert). Luckily, she was kind, and if you changed it she would just change it back and stet it without upbraiding you. Kael revised up until closing, and though we lackeys resented writers who kept changing “doughnut” to “coffee cake” then back to “doughnut” and then “coffee cake” again, because it meant more work for us, Kael’s changes were always improvements.