Courtney Wallace

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, written by Mary Norris, makes learning grammar fun. Part memoir and part usage guide, Norris tells her journey climbing the ladder to becoming the New York Times copy editor.  Throughout the novel, Norris shares her views on spelling, punctuation, comma faults, “who” vs. “whom”, “that” vs. “which,” compound words, gender-neutral words, dangling participles, and pronouns, all while telling her experiences with different authors. This book is both entertaining and informational. Whether or not you are interested in becoming a grammarian, this book is still charming and worth picking up.

Mary Norris grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and attended college in New York where she eventually moved permanently. Her very first job was working at a pool as a foot checker at the age of sixteen. She went on to work as a milk woman for a dairy company. It wasn’t until she went to college that she found her love for grammar. Mary Norris started out working for The New Yorker in 1978 and has worked there as a query proofreader and copy editor for over thirty years. In her books, she talks about how she has always wanted to write a book, and so she finally set out to write this book at the age of sixty-four.

Her story begins with “Spelling is for Weirdos” where she discusses the confusing rule of “i before e except after c.” She also answers the question, “Why should we care about spelling?” (Norris 16). Basically, the answer to this question is so that people do not look ignorant and uneducated in their formal writing. Norris also brings into question the necessity for copy editors when today we have spellcheck. The answer to this is simple: spellcheck “doesn’t recognize context and therefore cannot distinguish between homophones, words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings (Norris 17).

In her next chapter (“That Witch!”), Norris explains when a writer should use “that” and when they should use “which.” In chapter three, “The problem of Heeshe,” Norris discusses gender-neutral words, which is probably one of the more interesting topics in this book. Norris discusses all of the ideas people have had about introducing new gender-neutral pronouns into the English language. Spoiler alert – all attempts have failed.

The reader discovers where the title for the book comes from in the next chapter. One of the biggest mistakes people make in English today is saying “you and I” when they really mean “you and me.” After reading this chapter, it is very obvious what Mary Norris’ biggest grammatical pet peeve is.

Chapter 5 reveals why Norris refers to herself as a “comma queen” with the title, “Comma Comma Comma Comma, Chameleon.” This chapter is full of examples of comma splicing, inserting too many commas, and not putting in enough. Norris also describes what it’s like being a copy editor when she tells stories of authors who insist on commas that do not belong. This is one of the funnier chapters of her book. With titles like, “A dash, a semicolon, and a colon walk into a bar,” “What’s up with the apostrophe?”, “F*ck this sh*t,” and “Ballad of a pencil junkie,” I couldn’t help but be enticed to read the book to the end. The remaining chapters all have the same theme. Norris introduces a particular concept in grammar that people seem to have trouble with, and teaches it properly through funny stories and examples.

Norris’s first book was published on April 6^th, 2015 and since then has received a lot of praise. The back cover is full of praise from different authors, storytellers, humorists, and radio personalities. Ian Frazier, a best-selling author and humorist, said the book was “smart and funny and soulful and effortlessly illuminating.” Adam Gopnik said, “Marry Norris brings a tough-minded, clear-eyed, fine-tuned wisdom to all the perplexities and traps and terror of the English sentence.” According to Marilyn Johnson, “Marry Norris is a grammar geek with a streak of mischief, and her book is obscenely fun.” Garrison Keillor said that Norris’ book “is as entertaining as grammar can be. Very very. Read it and savor it.” John McPhee said, “Mary Norris is the verbal diagnostician I would turn to for a first, second, or third opinion on just about anything.”

Overall, Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen is charming, entertaining, and informational. However, one word that comes to mind when reading this book is ‘inconsistent.’ The chapters seem to be about a lot more than the title implies, and sometimes the stories she chooses to tell do not always seem completely relevant to the grammatical lesson given. On a personal note, I did not appreciate the excessive amount of page breaks throughout a single chapter because it was distracting for me.

In her review, Rebecca Mead argued that Norris’s book is “No dry guardian of grammar, no punitive Poobah of punctuation, Norris offers a warm, tender, and funny coming-of-age story.” However, while the majority of books reviews are very positive, it seems that the only ones who are giving this book any reviews are writers, English teachers, grammarians, and copy editors. Norris’s book is worthy of a broader readership. This book is appropriate for young adults and up. The book does include mild language throughout, and some adult content. Nevertheless, this would be a great book for anyone having a hard time studying grammar, or looking for a nice short book to read in a weekend.