The nit-picking glory of The New Yorker's Comma Queen | Mary Norris

"Copy editing for The New Yorker is like playing shortstop for a major league baseball team — every little movement gets picked over by the critics," says Mary Norris, who has played the position for more than thirty years. In that time, she's gotten a reputation for sternness and for being a "comma maniac," but this is unfounded, she says. Above all, her work is aimed at one thing: making authors look good. Explore The New Yorker's distinctive style with the person who knows it best in this charming talk.

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[JimFaindel]

This was wonderful, fascinating, I'd dare say even eye-opening. Please give us more talks like this one.

[TheGerogero]

She's on the front line of presenting thought coherently. Very cool.

[ThePartarar]

This woman's command of English is incredible.

[jellybeans]

Mary Norris is truly the queen and I'm so glad she's got to give a talk about her awesome work <3

[HamHamDude]

This is, strangely, one of the most riveting talks I've seen in a while.

[trefod]

I am suddenly reluctant to comment, out of fear of making grammatical errors.

[quenz.goosington]

At the start I was thinking it won't be long before this job is automated, but by the end it actually seems like pretty high-level, creative thinking. It will be really interesting when an AI can write, edit, and copy edit better than any human.

[Msfinable]

As a philology student I find most things that have something to do with the language we use, fascinating. I've used the last two years in university first writing and then trying to edit my own texts. It's so difficult! You never seem to notice your own mistakes. However, if those mistakes were printed in a magazine, I'm sure most of us, at least in the long run, would start noticing them. I like to think that writing is good when you pay no attention to what is written, but what is meant instead. In a bad text you always notice the words used, odd repetition, illogical conclusions and pronouns that don't really relate to anything/to a wrong thing/person. A good text just floats through and leaves the information in you. That's her job, and I appreciate her.

(I'm not an English speaker/student, there might be several mistakes in my writing, but I hope they won't totally ruin my point here)

[NoxMarcus]

Funny, quick, and enlightening. TED seems to be on a roll lately.

[jeremiahtablet]

Man, now I really want to make a Reddit or something all about correcting people's grammar, including our own. That chat group would be my favourite place to chat. This job is my dream job!

[eakherenow]

Mary Norris is now accepting her beauty apparently.Her revelation in Cypress bore fruit.Elegant, breathy-voiced and captivating.

[LordOfTheObvious]

Wow i had actual fun watching this. And i feel happy for a change. Thank you Mary Norris.
I can't help but wonder how many things are wrong in this comment.

[timcunningham]

The best summing-up of the New Yorker's use of commas was that of James Thurber who wrote: This magazine is in commatose condition.

[tomaswoodall]

Thank, God!! I didn't become a copy editor in Brazil. In 38 years I would be like her. Ouch!

[sillybearss]

This is surprisingly funny... I didn't expect that

[phoebejones]

I'm the editor of my school newspaper, but I also write things myself. This is particularly important to me because it's high school, and I am a student, and my classmates think it's ridiculous when I tell them that they've misplaced a comma or that a certain word should be written differently, but I am a copy editor for my own work as well, and they don't realize that I am harder on my own stuff than I am on theirs, which is why my pieces have more reads than theirs.

[sambhav.bhandari]

There was no point of this talk, but she talked so nicely I really had fun

[sagejoker]

She's the queen of the grammar nazis.

[Scarletcroft]

Oh, I do so love commas. Most people don't use them enough, or don't know how to use them right. I'm also the type to worry, that I use them too much.

[Rohilla]

“Everyone held their collective breath”
would be a good compromise.