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Mary Norris
- Mary Norris began working at The New Yorker in 1978, and has been a query proofreader at the magazine since 1993. She has written for The Talk of the Town and for newyorker.com, on topics ranging from her cousin Dennis Kucinich to mud wrestling in Rockaway. She is best known for her pieces on pencils and punctuation, and is working on a book about language, to be published by W. W. Norton.
Results 1 - 10 of 58
November 13, 2013
Blog: Page-Turner
A Thrilling Round of Literary Jeopardy
Once you know that Tom Nissley was an eight-time “Jeopardy” champion, things fall into place.
September 24, 2013
Blog: Page-Turner
It’s National Punctuation Day
I noticed that Alternate Side Parking was not suspended for National Punctuation Day, although street signs and updates from the Department of Transportation feature the faithful ampersand (Tues & Fri) and the treacherous hyphen (11:30-1).
April 26, 2013
Blog: Page-Turner
The Double L
To judge by letters from readers, the doubling of consonants in such words as “traveller” and “focussed” is a subject of undying interest.
February 8, 2013
Blog: Page-Turner
Busman’s Holiday
“How to Not Write Bad,” by Ben Yagoda, is the latest in a series of books about writing and editing that have crossed my desk in the past year.
December 25, 2012
Blog: Page-Turner
A Copy Editor’s Twelve Days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a Webster’s and O.E.D. On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me two Magic Rubs and a Webster’s...
November 30, 2012
Blog: Page-Turner
Pencil Cup
My apartment was a little disorganized, because I had let David Rees and a crew use it to shoot a commercial for his book “How to Sharpen Pencils.” I play a woman frustrated by her inability to achieve the perfect pencil point: This pencil is too dull! This pencil is too pointy.
November 5, 2012
Blog: Culture Desk
Checking in on the Bungaloonies
I braved it on Saturday: the return to Rockaway to see what damage the hurricane had wrought. The streets are like dirt roads. Cars are upended against fences. Bicycles are in the trees. The high-water mark is visible in the form of debris stuck to chain-link fences at anywhere from three to five and a half feet
October 29, 2012
Blog: Culture Desk
Riding Out Sandy in the Rockaways
My neighbors in Rockaway are defying the evacuation order. The Master Plumber posted a picture of the boardwalk with the ocean already under it, but wrote that they were “high and dry,” and that...
September 28, 2012
Blog: Page-Turner
“Moby-Dick” Gets Read
On the weekend that “Moby-Dick” went live on the Web—a chapter a day read by a different person, each chapter accompanied by an original work of art—I was at a ukulele festival in Provincetown, where there are now whale-watching boats instead of a whaling industry, thank God.
September 14, 2012
Blog: Page-Turner
Don’t Try to Hone In On a Copy Editor
Our tweeting readers have homed in on what they characterize as a flagrant misuse in this week’s Comment. Steve Coll writes, about the evolution of the two big Party Conventions, that although the procedure...
Results: 1 - 10 of 58
