Mary Norris – Between You & Me

Late Night Conversation, hosted by Paul Martone

“The dictionary is a wonderful thing, but you can’t let it push you around,” says Mary Norris, tonight’s featured guest. Mary spent more than three decades in The New Yorker‘s copy department, maintaining its celebrated high standards. Now she brings her vast experience, good cheer, and finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice. Between You & Me features Norris’s laugh-out-loud descriptions of some of the most common and vexing problems in spelling, punctuation, and usage—comma faults, danglers, “who” vs. “whom,” “that” vs. “which,” compound words, gender-neutral language—and her clear explanations of how to handle them. Down-to-earth and always open-minded, she draws on examples from Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and the Lord’s Prayer, as well as from The Honeymooners, The Simpsons, David Foster Wallace, and Gillian Flynn.

Listen to the full episode here:

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ABOUT OUR GUEST

Mary Norris began working at The New Yorker in 1978. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, she lives in New York. This is her first book.