Listener Mail for June 14, 2015
There are, it seems, waves of anguish across the land about the abuse of the English language. They washed ashore last week after Michael's conversation with Mary Norris. The veteran copy editor of The New Yorker was talking about her new book, Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen.
This is from Laurie Lewis in Kingston:
"Love the Comma Queen. Love the chutzpah of the title, Between You and Me! Why are people so afraid of saying 'you and me'? My two pet peeves:
- perpendicular, as used to mean at a right angle. The OED definition is: 'At a right angle to the ground'. Some people didn't seem to get the last part. I read in a recent novel of a woman who placed her desk 'perpendicular to the sofa.' Funny image.
- Majority, as used when the meaning is simply 'most of'. 'The majority of the flavour came from spices.' If you can't actually count the stuff, it can't have a majority. Wrong is the new Right!! End of morning rant. . . Bye for now. . ."
From Elizabeth Thorsen in Kitchener:
"My latest peeve is 'incentivize', which I didn't know existed but have seen two times in print in the last week! Ms. Norris totally won me over with her response to the question about 'impact' as a verb - uugg!"
From Barbara Dylla in Montreal:
"As a translator and copy editor, I really enjoyed your interview with Ms Norris. Your questions about commas, which/that, more than/over, are ones we deal with regularly. One of my mega-pet peeves is the increasing use of the pronoun 'that' - instead of the correct 'who' - in conjunction with a person, e.g. 'The girl that brought the tray,' or 'Ten athletes that went broke.' Grr!"
This is from Bill Rankin, Edmonton:
"Michael, I was so happy to hear Mary Norris bring up the issue of what she calls 'the discretionary comma'. In grad school, one of my profs remarked in his comments on an essay that I used commas 'like salt and pepper'. If that wasn't a discretionary approach to comma use, I don't know what was. Frankly, I didn't know the rules. Today I teach essay-writing, and I tell my students that salting sentences with self-indulgent punctuation elevates the blood-pressure of some of us."
From Miles Potter in Stratford, Ontario:
"My father was a copy editor in New York publishing 50 years ago, and while the technology has changed, it is clear that the attitude of editors, has not. Ms. Norris sounds very much like he did, musing over somewhat fuzzy typewritten manuscripts and making marks I did not understand. Other kids' fathers may have had more exotic sounding jobs, but I was happy with my dad as he handed me, one by one, the galley proofs for the American edition of 'Doctor No'. I may have been the first kid in North America to meet James Bond."
From Valérie Kaelin in Toronto:
"I would add to the excellent interview with Ms. Norris that copy editors have not disappeared! However, their freelance services must now be paid for by authors themselves. You cannot imagine how stressful and expensive that development is, in meeting submission deadlines - especially since good copy editors are frequently booked months in advance. These are tough times for 'content providers' in any field. And yes, thank you, Ms. Norris, for noting the vulgarity of using 'impact' as a verb."
Thanks to everyone who sent an e-mail, or posted their thoughts on our Web site, or on Twitter or Facebook. Our email address is thesundayedition@cbc.ca. On Twitter, we're @CBCSunday.
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