Download or read book Between You Me Confessions of a Comma Queen written by Mary Norris and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-04-06 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal "Hilarious…This book charmed my socks off." —Patricia O’Conner, New York Times Book Review Mary Norris has spent more than three decades working in The New Yorker’s renowned copy department, helping to maintain its celebrated high standards. In Between You & Me, she brings her vast experience with grammar and usage, her good cheer and irreverence, and her finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice.

Download or read book Between You Me written by Mary Norris and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-22 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most irreverent and enjoyable book on language since Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Mary Norris has spent more than three decades guarding the New Yorker's grand traditions of grammar and usage. Now she brings her vast experience and sharpened pencil to help the rest of us, in a charming language book as full of life as it is of practical advice. Between You & Me features Norris's hilarious exhortations about exclamation marks and emoticons, splice commas and swear words; her memorable exchanges with writers such as Pauline Kael, Philip Roth, and George Saunders; and her loving meditations on the most important tools of the trade. Readers - and writers - will find in Norris neither a scold nor a softie but a wise new friend in love with language. Mary Norris began working at the New Yorker in 1978. Originally from Cleveland, she now lives in New York. This is her first book. Her favourite pencil used to be the Dixon Ticonderoga No. 1, but she now makes do with the Palomino Blackwing. ‘Informative, witty and very funny: a must for anyone who cares about what they write.’ BookMooch ‘A delightful mix of autobiographer, New Yorker lore, and good language sense.’ Ben Yagoda ‘[The] verbal diagnostician I would turn to for a first, second, or third opinion on just about anything.' John McPhee, New Yorker ‘Countless laugh-out-loud passages...A funny book for any serious reader.’ Kirkus ‘Mary Norris is a grammar geek with a streak of mischief, and her book is obscenely fun.' Marilyn Johnson ‘Between You & Me is as entertaining as grammar can be. Very very. Read it and savor it.’ Garrison Keillor ‘Mary Norris’s Between You & Me is so smart and funny and soulful and effortlessly illuminating. Well, she herself is so generous and great—what else would she do?' Ian Frazier ‘Very funny, lucid, and lively...[Norris’] love of language transcends all, reconnecting the alienated pieces of this world—from the micromachinery of the serial comma up to the cosmic mystery of story.‘ New Republic ‘I enjoyed Mary Norris’s book so much. It’s exactly my idea of a good read.’ Kate Grenville, in correspondence ‘This book charmed my socks off...Norris is a master storyteller.’ New York Times ‘If you loved Eats Shoots and Leaves you will ADORE this marvellously intelligent and witty disquisition on the finer points of punctuation and grammar.’ Booktopia Buzz 'This enchanting little tome is a journey through her world of punctuation and grammar, with some very cool anecdotes...If you like words, language or puzzles, this is the book for you – or that friend or mother who always corrects you.' Readings ’So warm and un-fusty that the pages just slip by. Yet it manages in its final few to sneak in thoughtful discussions of, among other disputes, swearing, commas, colons and semi-colons.’ New Zealand Listener ‘Enlightening, useful, and often outright hilarious...From exclamation marks to emoticons, swear words to split infinitives, Mary Norris is the bomb.’ Australian Women’s Weekly

Download or read book Between You Me written by Mary Norris and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-22 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most irreverent and enjoyable book on language since Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Mary Norris has spent more than three decades guarding the New Yorker’s grand traditions of grammar and usage. Now she brings her vast experience and sharpened pencil to help the rest of us, in a charming language book as full of life as it is of practical advice. Between You & Me features Norris’s hilarious exhortations about exclamation marks and emoticons, splice commas and swear words; her memorable exchanges with writers such as Pauline Kael, Philip Roth, and George Saunders; and her loving meditations on the most important tools of the trade. Readers—and writers—will find in Norris neither a scold nor a softie but a wise new friend in love with language.

Download or read book Greek to Me Adventures of the Comma Queen written by Mary Norris and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the most satisfying accounts of a great passion that I have ever read.” —Vivian Gornick, New York Times Book Review Mary Norris, The New Yorker’s Comma Queen and best-selling author of Between You & Me, has had a lifelong love affair with words. In Greek to Me, she delivers a delightful paean to the art of self-expression through accounts of her solo adventures in the land of olive trees and ouzo. Along the way, Norris explains how the alphabet originated in Greece, makes the case for Athena as a feminist icon, and reveals the surprising ways in which Greek helped form English. Greek to Me is filled with Norris’s memorable encounters with Greek words, Greek gods, Greek wine—and more than a few Greek men.

Download or read book Rebel with a Clause written by Ellen Jovin and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Funny Gift for Grammar Lovers NATIONAL BESTSELLER "A fresh and democratic take on language by a gifted teacher." —Mary Norris "[Jovin] never hectors, never finger-points; she enlightens and illuminates. This is lovely work." —Benjamin Dreyer An unconventional guide to the English language drawn from the cross-country adventures of an itinerant grammarian. When Ellen Jovin first walked outside her Manhattan apartment building and set up a folding table with a GRAMMAR TABLE sign, it took about thirty seconds to get her first visitor. Everyone had a question for her. Grammar Table was such a hit—attracting the attention of the New York Times, NPR, and CBS Evening News—that Jovin soon took it on the road, traveling across the US to answer questions from writers, lawyers, editors, businesspeople, students, bickering couples, and anyone else who uses words in this world. In Rebel with a Clause, Jovin tackles what is most on people’s minds, grammatically speaking—from the Oxford comma to the places prepositions can go, the likely lifespan of whom, semicolonphobia, and more. Punctuated with linguistic debates from tiny towns to our largest cities, this grammar romp will delight anyone wishing to polish their prose or revel in our age-old, universal fascination with language.

Download or read book A World Without Whom written by Emmy J. Favilla and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A provocative and jaunty romp through the dos and don'ts of writing for the internet" (NYT)--the practical, the playful, and the politically correct--from BuzzFeed copy chief Emmy Favilla. A World Without "Whom" is Eats, Shoots & Leaves for the internet age, and BuzzFeed global copy chief Emmy Favilla is the witty go-to style guru of webspeak. As language evolves faster than ever before, what is the future of "correct" writing? When Favilla was tasked with creating a style guide for BuzzFeed, she opted for spelling, grammar, and punctuation guidelines that would reflect not only the site's lighthearted tone, but also how readers actually use language IRL. With wry cleverness and an uncanny intuition for the possibilities of internet-age expression, Favilla makes a case for breaking the rules laid out by Strunk and White: A world without "whom," she argues, is a world with more room for writing that's clear, timely, pleasurable, and politically aware. Featuring priceless emoji strings, sidebars, quizzes, and style debates among the most lovable word nerds in the digital media world--of which Favilla is queen--A World Without "Whom" is essential for readers and writers of virtually everything: news articles, blog posts, tweets, texts, emails, and whatever comes next . . . so basically everyone.

Download or read book Between the Lines written by Jodi Picoult and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Told in their separate voices, sixteen-year-old Prince Oliver, who wants to break free of his fairy-tale existence, and fifteen-year-old Delilah, a loner obsessed with Prince Oliver and the book in which he exists, work together to seek his freedom.

Download or read book Word by Word written by Kory Stamper and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don’t want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets.” With wit and irreverence, lexicographer Kory Stamper cracks open the obsessive world of dictionary writing, from the agonizing decisions about what to define and how to do it to the knotty questions of ever-changing word usage. Filled with fun facts—for example, the first documented usage of “OMG” was in a letter to Winston Churchill—and Stamper’s own stories from the linguistic front lines (including how she became America’s foremost “irregardless” apologist, despite loathing the word), Word by Word is an endlessly entertaining look at the wonderful complexities and eccentricities of the English language.

Download or read book The Years with Ross written by James Thurber and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From iconic American humorist James Thurber, a celebrated and poignant memoir about his years at The New Yorker with the magazine’s unforgettable founder and longtime editor, Harold Ross “Extremely entertaining. . . . life at The New Yorker emerges as a lovely sort of pageant of lunacy, of practical jokes, of feuds and foibles. It is an affectionate picture of scamps playing their games around a man who, for all his brusqueness, loved them, took care of them, pampered and scolded them like an irascible mother hen.” —New York Times With a foreword by Adam Gopnik and illustrations by James Thurber At the helm of America’s most influential literary magazine from 1925 to 1951, Harold Ross introduced the country to a host of exciting talent, including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Ogden Nash, Peter Arno, Charles Addams, and Dorothy Parker. But no one could have written about this irascible, eccentric genius more affectionately or more critically than James Thurber, whose portrait of Ross captures not only a complex literary giant but a historic friendship and a glorious era as well. "If you get Ross down on paper," warned Wolcott Gibbs to Thurber," nobody will ever believe it." But readers of this unforgettable memoir will find that they do. Offering a peek into the lives of two American literary giants and the New York literary scene at its heyday, The Years with Ross is a true classic, and a testament to the enduring influence of their genius.

Download or read book How to Not Write Bad written by Ben Yagoda and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ben Yagoda's How to Not Write Bad illustrates how we can all write better, more clearly, and for a wider readership. He offers advice on what he calls "not-writing-badly," which consists of the ability, first, to craft sentences that are correct in terms of spelling, diction (word choice), punctuation, and grammar, and that also display clarity, precision, and grace. Then he focuses on crafting whole paragraphs—with attention to cadence, consistency of tone, sentence transitions, and paragraph length. In a fun, comprehensive guide, Yagoda lays out the simple steps we can all take to make our writing more effective, more interesting—and just plain better.

Download or read book Critical Theory and Social Media written by Thomas Allmer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-10 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are enormously popular: they are continuously ranked among the most frequently accessed websites worldwide. However there are as yet few studies which combine critical theoretical and empirical research in the context of digital and social media. The aim of this book is to study the constraints and emancipatory potentials of new media and to assess to what extent digital and social media can contribute to strengthen the idea of the communication and network commons, and a commons-based information society. Based on a critical theory and political economy approach, this book explores: the foundational concepts of a critical theory of media, technology, and society users’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards the antagonistic character and the potentials and risks of social media whether technological and/or social changes are required in order to bring about real social media and human liberation. Critical Theory and Social Media examines both academic discourse on, and users’ responses to, new media, making it a valuable tool for international scholars and students of sociology, media and communication studies, social theory, new media, and information society studies. Its clear and interesting insights into corporate practices of the global new media sector will mean that it appeals to critical social media users around the world.

Download or read book The Glass Sentence written by S. E. Grove and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of The Golden Compass, this New York Times bestseller will take you on a fantastic journey across worlds and time. Boston, 1891. Sophia Tims comes from a family of explorers and cartologers who, for generations, have been traveling and mapping the New World—a world changed by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all the continents were flung into different time periods. Eight years ago, Sophia's parents left her with her uncle Shadrack, the foremost cartologer in Boston, and went on an urgent mission. They never returned. Then Shadrack is kidnapped. Sophia must search for him with the help of Theo, a refugee from the West. Together they travel over rough terrain and uncharted ocean, encounter pirates and traders, and rely on a combination of Shadrack’s maps, common sense, and Sophia's unusual powers of observation. Little do they know that their lives are in as much danger as Shadrack's. A New York Times Bestseller! “I am in no doubt about the energy of S.E. Grove as a full-fledged, pathfinding fantasist. I look forward to the next installment to place upon the pile. Intensely.”—Gregory Maguire, The New York Times Book Review * “Wholly original and marvelous beyond compare.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Download or read book Eats Shoots Leaves written by Lynne Truss and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-04-12 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the internet, in email, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Lynne Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with.

Download or read book Dreyer s English written by Benjamin Dreyer and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A sharp, funny grammar guide they’ll actually want to read, from Random House’s longtime copy chief and one of Twitter’s leading language gurus NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY O: The Oprah Magazine • Paste • Shelf Awareness “Essential (and delightful!)”—People We all write, all the time: books, blogs, emails. Lots and lots of emails. And we all want to write better. Benjamin Dreyer is here to help. As Random House’s copy chief, Dreyer has upheld the standards of the legendary publisher for more than two decades. He is beloved by authors and editors alike—not to mention his followers on social media—for deconstructing the English language with playful erudition. Now he distills everything he has learned from the myriad books he has copyedited and overseen into a useful guide not just for writers but for everyone who wants to put their best prose foot forward. As authoritative as it is amusing, Dreyer’s English offers lessons on punctuation, from the underloved semicolon to the enigmatic en dash; the rules and nonrules of grammar, including why it’s OK to begin a sentence with “And” or “But” and to confidently split an infinitive; and why it’s best to avoid the doldrums of the Wan Intensifiers and Throat Clearers, including “very,” “rather,” “of course,” and the dreaded “actually.” Dreyer will let you know whether “alright” is all right (sometimes) and even help you brush up on your spelling—though, as he notes, “The problem with mnemonic devices is that I can never remember them.” And yes: “Only godless savages eschew the series comma.” Chockful of advice, insider wisdom, and fun facts, this book will prove to be invaluable to everyone who wants to shore up their writing skills, mandatory for people who spend their time editing and shaping other people’s prose, and—perhaps best of all—an utter treat for anyone who simply revels in language. Praise for Dreyer’s English “Playful, smart, self-conscious, and personal . . . One encounters wisdom and good sense on nearly every page of Dreyer’s English.”—The Wall Street Journal “Destined to become a classic.”—The Millions “Dreyer can help you . . . with tips on punctuation and spelling. . . . Even better: He’ll entertain you while he’s at it.”—Newsday

Download or read book Best Boy A Novel written by Eli Gottlieb and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-08-24 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, Booklist, BookPage, Library Journal, and Library Reads A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection An IndieNext Selection A People Magazine Pick of the Week Winner of the Rome Prize Winner of the American Initiative for Italian Culture “The Bridge” Book Award Longlisted for the International DUBLIN Literary Award Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence (Fiction) "Raw and beautiful. . . . What rises and shines from the page is Todd Aaron, a hero of such singular character and clear spirit that you will follow him anywhere. You won’t just root for him, you will fight and push and pray for him to wrest control of his future. You will read this book in one sitting or maybe two, and, I promise, you will miss this man deeply when you are done.” —Ann Bauer, Washington Post Sent to a “therapeutic community” for autism at the age of eleven, Todd Aaron, now in his fifties, is the “Old Fox” of Payton LivingCenter. A joyous man who rereads the encyclopedia compulsively, he is unnerved by the sudden arrivals of a menacing new staffer and a disruptive, brain-injured roommate. His equilibrium is further worsened by Martine, a one-eyed new resident who has romantic intentions and convinces him to go off his meds to feel “normal” again. Undone by these pressures, Todd attempts an escape to return “home” to his younger brother and to a childhood that now inhabits only his dreams. Written astonishingly in the first-person voice of an autistic, adult man, Best Boy—with its unforgettable portraits of Todd’s beloved mother, whose sweet voice still sings from the grave, and a staffer named Raykene, who says that Todd “reflects the beauty of His creation”—is a piercing, achingly funny, finally shattering novel no reader can ever forget.

Download or read book The Sense of Style written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Charming and erudite," from the author of Rationality and Enlightenment Now, "The wit and insight and clarity he brings . . . is what makes this book such a gem.” —Time.com Why is so much writing so bad, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do the kids today even care about good writing—and why should we care? From the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now. In this entertaining and eminently practical book, the cognitive scientist, dictionary consultant, and New York Times–bestselling author Steven Pinker rethinks the usage guide for the twenty-first century. Using examples of great and gruesome modern prose while avoiding the scolding tone and Spartan tastes of the classic manuals, he shows how the art of writing can be a form of pleasurable mastery and a fascinating intellectual topic in its own right. The Sense of Style is for writers of all kinds, and for readers who are interested in letters and literature and are curious about the ways in which the sciences of mind can illuminate how language works at its best.

Download or read book The Language Wars written by Henry Hitchings and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The English language is a battlefield. Since the age of Shakespeare, arguments over correct usage have been bitter, and have always really been about contesting values-morality, politics, and class. The Language Wars examines the present state of the conflict, its history, and its future. Above all, it uses the past as a way of illuminating the present. Moving chronologically, the book explores the most persistent issues to do with English and unpacks the history of "proper" usage. Where did these ideas spring from? Who has been on the front lines in the language wars? The Language Wars examines grammar rules, regional accents, swearing, spelling, dictionaries, political correctness, and the role of electronic media in reshaping language. It also takes a look at such details as the split infinitive, elocution, and text messaging. Peopled with intriguing characters such as Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, and Lenny Bruce, The Language Wars is an essential volume for anyone interested in the state of the English language today or its future.