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.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.
Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at www.ted.com/tra...
Follow TED news on Twitter: / tednews
Like TED on Facebook: / ted
Subscribe to our channel: / tedtalksdirector

[@JimFaindel]

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

[@HamzaAnsari1425]

+Jaime Delfín I agree. We need more talks like this! :)

[@ThePartarar]

This woman's command of English is incredible.

[@Nawroz770]

Yes, I work in journalism so I understand where she is coming from. I so much want to be an editor one day. English is the third language I learn so I am not sure if it is really possible.

[@ThePartarar]

+Nawroz I believe in you. Just practice as much as possible and you will without a doubt get there! ;D

[@jamesmcinnis208]

I believe it.

[@ThePartarar]

@@jamesmcinnis208 way to time travel me back to 17 lol

[@jamesmcinnis208]

@@ThePartarar You're welcome!

[@TheGerogero]

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

[@jellybeans4119]

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

[@HamHamDude]

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

[@eakherenow]

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

[@trefod]

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

[@jeremiahtablet]

I'm suddenly reluctant to comment out of *the* fear of making grammatical errors.

[@trefod]

+Jeremiah Tablet Aaaaargh!

[@JohnVKaravitis]

+trefod “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

[@MrUndersolo]

Jeremiah Tablet “I am”...much better than “I’m”.

[@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.

[@andy4an]

+44thats44oars computers are great at being bad cop, because they don't have feelings to hurt...yet.

[@sid.h]

+44thats44oars Not in the foreseeable future, I think.

[@quenz.goosington]

Szilárd Hompoth Soon enough, I think.

[@sid.h]

44thats44oars And what do you base your opinion on? Do you have any insight into machine learning or computational linguistics, perhaps?

[@quenz.goosington]

Szilárd Hompoth The mean consensus among experts on when the technological singularity will occur is 2045. I think mastering writing will probably happen before mastering basically everything, and even if it doesn't, 2045 isn't that far away.

[@NoxMarcus]

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

[@QuickTalks]

+FeedbackJack Indeed.

[@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)

[@edukid1984]

I have noticed at work that when I print out what I have typed into a Word file, it's much easier to catch typos or grammar errors than just trying to proof-read on screen.

[@Msfinable]

edukid1984 yeah so true! And by then it's usually too late :'D

[@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.

[@debbieomi]

+LordOfTheObvious I'll give it a go. lol Wow, I actually had fun watching this. (Or, I leave out actual and make it simply, I had 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. I know there are those better than I who will re-edit my edit. :-D

[@MrSteakable]

+LordOfTheObvious 5 or 6 things by my count (depending on how far you want to go with it).

[@jeremiahtablet]

+debbieomi take out the period and put a comma and put watching this, and

[@forgottenbooks2395]

"Can't help but wonder" mixes "can't help wondering" and "can't but wonder".

[@spongebobspongebob24]

I thought you can't start a sentence with an "and".

[@StephenRoseDuo]

I was highly entertained

[@kasper7002]

+Stephen Rose entertained.

[@StephenRoseDuo]

Transient Bliss it took a while but I got it ;)

[@kasper7002]

+Stephen Rose always learning; until we meet again.

[@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!

[@timcunningham722]

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.

[@sagejoker666]

She's the queen of the grammar nazis.

[@g_glop]

+Eduardo Rocha Well, when you're working for the New Yorker...

[@Lululululee]

Grammar Nazis? xD Come on. It is annoying to be corrected but giving a derogatory nickname to people who has work hard to be educated is just wrong.

[@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

[@andy4an]

+Veronica Angelin she has an excellent vocabulary, a fine understandings of which words are funny, and great comedic timing. the first two make a lot of sense given her profession, but the later was a nice surprise.

[@belindaedenfield883]

I enjoyed her talk very much.

[@phoebejones3944]

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.

[@Vapor249]

Ms. Norris is my hero!

[@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.

[@cuteswan]

+Scientea - So you must know the difference between a cat and a comma, right? (˙ǝsnɐlɔ sʇᴉ ɟo puǝ ǝɥʇ ʇɐ ǝsnɐd ɐ sɐɥ ɐɯɯoɔ ɐ ǝlᴉɥʍ sʍɐd sʇᴉ ɟo puǝ ǝɥʇ ʇɐ sʍɐlɔ sɐɥ ʇɐɔ ∀)

[@Scarletcroft]

debbieomi Hahah, oops! Thank you. Still, I think i'm doing pretty well for a non-native English speaker.

[@camofrog]

You use them too much.

[@Rohilla313]

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

[@sambhav.bhandari]

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

[@andy4an]

+Sambhav Bhandari the "E" in TED is "Entertainment", so I think it succedes. It also made me think about something that I've never thought about before, so that's a plus.

[@dragony3931]

heavy topic interesting delivery

[@chaselepard]

thanks for the upload!

[@MarkArandjus]

My native Slovenian language is an absolute ruthless dictatorship when it comes to commas, they're all over the place. Meanwhile in English it's much more relaxed and I'm often in a dilemma if I add in too many or too little commas.

[@drditup]

This. was. AMAZING =) I never thought words could be that interesting! but please don't show my spelling to that woman XD

[@Markadown]

This was fantastic.

[@jeremiahtablet]

What amount of money will I be paid for doing such a job, and how do I apply for it? Do you have any recommendations for a beginner?

[@jeremiahtablet]

On the matter of the job, where is a place you would send a first-time worker?

[@andy4an]

+Jeremiah Tablet One of my friends got a copy editing job out of college with a degree in communications. No idea how much he makes though. There are websites that show ranges for such things though, and the field is diverse. It includes things like advertisements, but written and audible.

[@vulcanfeline]

i first came in conflict with this use of "they" in grade one. i was writing a sentence about a doctor and did not want to use he or she because we could not know the gender of the doctor. i was reprimanded by my teacher but continued to use singular "they" all my life. "The last option is to move beyond the old view that their, them, themselves, and they cannot function as singular pronouns and to embrace them in this use with no qualms." grammarist.com/usage/they/

[@216trixie]

+vulcanfeline You were "writing a sentence about a doctor and didn't want to use he or she because we couldn't know the gender.."..LOLOL....Right....If 1st grade.....Hmm. You were, what 5 or 6?...

[@keeperofthegood]

+216trixie Gender equality starts in pre-kindergarten and yes, in grades 1 to 6 it is hammered away at all times you cannot assume gender rolls and have to expand past that to be inclusive in your descriptions. If told to write what a Dr would say, you cannot say "she would say" or "he would say". Went through this with both my kids many times the last ten or so years. (and as gender equality is nothing new at all, I am well willing to bet this ritual in teaching has taken place for a good many of the many decades since last I was to school).

[@TheGoldenDunsparce]

+keeperofthegood This reminds me of a riddle (if that's what youd call it) that my teacher gave the class that goes something like this: A boy and his father get in a car crash and both end up in the hospital. The father dies. The son is so beaten up, he has to have surgery. The doctor walks into the room, looks down at the boy, and says, "I can't lead the surgery. This boy is my son!" How is that possible? No one could figure it out. "But the father's dead. How could the boy be the doctor's son? Huh? What? How?" Our teacher blew our minds when he gave the answer: The doctor was the boy's mother. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

[@Taric25]

I loved this!

So enjoy-able

[@FindThePattern]

What an odd choice of title. Commas in copyrighting are an area that will prompt a flamewar (or what passes for one among the erudite) almost every time. I watched this expecting to be rolling my eyes at arcane (and archaic) rules about the Oxford comma, semicolons versus commas, and extraneous commas. Instead she chose examples that were more obviously incorrect and mostly textbook errors. I have to wonder if the talk was pitched as a comma talk, then was perhaps changed to the more pedestrian one we saw after the body count mounted during practice sessions.

[@beritbranch4949]

Too many years ago, trying to be professional, I took my poems to a professional copy place to be nicely printed and copied. My originals had a few corrections, smudges and some sticky bits. I gave the beloved scribbles to the clerk but there were some questions about the punctuations. The clerk asked if I wanted my poems printed as written. It seemed to me she was implying that that would be a thing of utmost folly. Was I positive I wanted that comma there? The line broken there? Shouldn't it be there? In that moment I had a blinding flash, I knew why Gertrude Stein wrote without punctuations. Alice Toklas was her secretary and they had stood together in exactly this same position, having exactly the same discussion. I did not have the poems printed. I took them home and loved them as they were, my imperfect, but well loved children. I never, ever tried to have any poems professionally copied. I hope someday, Ms. Norris, I may read you those imperfectly punctuated poems.

[@roidroid]

*"no-nothingism"* could also refer to the polarization of politics, where there is no middle ground. Everyone has to have a substantive and radical opinion on every topic and issue.

[@Endureth]

I love this woman.

[@philevans2164]

she is lit.

[@lohphat]

Nice, talk.

[@ashamazon2262]

That was delightful.

[@TheGoldenDunsparce]

Wow, that liguine sentence needed way more chances than replacing "like" with "as". So many commas were missing, and even without them, she read it out loud as if they were there. For me, it would have been so difficlt to read out loud without running out of breath!

[@EMWUZX]

+TheGoldenDunsparce Nope, I'm not seeing it. Where else could you have placed commas in that sentence?

[@TheGoldenDunsparce]

I would have said something like, "A dock, that had broken in the middle and lost its other half, had sloped down toward the water, its support pipes and wires leaning forward, like when you open a box of linguine and it slides out." Maybe that might have been too many commas though lol

[@EMWUZX]

***** I don't know; I think your version seems fairly reasonable.

[@andy4an]

funny!!!! somethin i aint never thought to much bout,

[@astralax]

+weesh ful Clearly.

[@andy4an]

Jack lol it looks like you are taking my comment at face value, rather than as a carefully crafted train wreck!

[@4tech69]

+weesh ful I'm not sure crafted is appropriate here. Would you consider created?

[@andy4an]

I used "crafted" because it went through many iterations. The first version had some good vocabulary. after I stripped that out, I added the double negative and the "ain't", then I removed the apostrophes, then I removed letters to give it a dialect, removed the trailing "it" and then I added too many exclamation points. Finally, I changed "too" to "to" and the final period to a comma. At one point there were more capital letters, but I stripped them out, though I don't remember when that happened. I'm suddenly realizing that I missed "I", so I'm going to edit the post and take care of that. Sure, "created" works just fine and is accurate. But I actually put quite a bit of thought into refining the post into a monstrosity. "Crafted" seems appropriate in that light.

[@4tech69]

+weesh ful I know. I was just playing the proverbial copy editor.

[@Timrath]

I, too, think big numbers should always be written as digits, rather than words. How come The New Yorker thinks otherwise?

[@Tr0al]

I suddenly feel a strong urge to clear my throat.

[@iluvsns]

My dream job.

[@dreaminginnoother]

2:55 that guy is unamused and unimpressed.

[@JohnVKaravitis]

Entertaining.

[@hsgrain490]

Commas changing the world.

[@apm77]

Anyone who thinks singular 'they' is grammatically incorrect has no business being a copy editor.

[@stone8193]

Adrian Morgan yeah. Everyone in that case does function as a singular noun

[@andy4an]

The "singular they" is actually fine. Let the new Yorker keep their wonky style guide...they aren't holding up progress by doing so.

[@rohangrant9552]

Zach 'M

[@rohangrant9552]

weesh @ 💁

[@yourgirltee3781]

Honestly my homework has sent me here

[@latebloomer4755]

That was as lame as I expected. I've never read the new yorker. It seems rather snooty. Though i did enjoy a documentary about their cartoons.

[@Serfuzz]

Thanks for commenting on the ridiculous tendency to spell 'mike' as 'mic'. That grates me to no end. OTOH I have no problem with singular they.

[@nigelpar]

How about everybody instead of everyone?

[@maxbanziger]

Was it only one linguina that slid out of the box?

[@thecolorred1823]

Dr. Love

[@HikaruKatayamma]

I'm surprised that everyone didn't become everybody. Then again, that seems too obvious.

[@CaesarsSalad]

+Hikaru Katayamma It wouldn't have changed anything. Everybody is still singular.

[@tennisdude52278]

Everybody is also singular. You wouldn't say "everybody were there."

[@timcunningham722]

Personally, I think the New Yorker is in a commatose condition.

[@swfreak258]

I'm not gonna comment on how stupid her opinion on singular they is

[@zanderrose]

This is some prescriptivist bullshit. /r/badlinguistics would be all over this

[@xXbudred123Xx]

First of all, Miked is stupid, that's not even a word. Mic is short for microphone, not mikrophone. Second, nobody gets offended by "the F word" anymore. This is an example as to why nobody likes establishment media anymore, they're all so out of touch.

[@vaibhavgupta20]

todd talk.

[@andy4an]

+Vaibhav Gupta lol! I get the reference, but I disagree.

[@vaibhavgupta20]

weesh ful i disagree too.

[@beliasphyre3497]

There needs to be a gender neutral singular possessive for their, and not zer.

[@wantedpwner]

Bu coçuk ne diyor la... Do you have nothing else to waste your time to? I am assuming it's your job though... But you really live once on this planet so you ought to do things more interesting. Like science, science is interesting, grammar? No!

[@Kadulikan]

Do I understand that the (somewhat cringy) New-Yorker style gives draws some pride? Yes. Does that make me respect it, and, appreciate reading it, or rather, wading through it, because, it is annoying? No.