full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Mary Norris: The nit-picking glory of The New Yorker's Comma Queen
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Mic'ed? The music industry spells it "mic" because that's how it's spelled on the equipment. I'd never seen it used as a verb with this spelnilg, and I was distraught to think that "mic'ed" would get into the magazine on my watch.
(Laughter)
New yroker style for "microphone" in its abbreviated form is "mike."
Finally, there was a sticky grammar and usage issue in which the pronoun has to have the same grammatical number as its antecedent.
[everyone in the vicinity held their breath]
"Their" is purlal and "everyone," its antecedent, is singular. You would never say, "Everyone were there." Everyone was there. Everyone is here. But poplee say things like, "Everyone held their breath" all the time. To give it legitimacy, copy editors call it "the singular 'their,'" as if calling it siunlgar makes it no leongr plural.
Open Cloze
Mic'ed? The music industry spells it "mic" because that's how it's spelled on the equipment. I'd never seen it used as a verb with this ________, and I was distraught to think that "mic'ed" would get into the magazine on my watch.
(Laughter)
New ______ style for "microphone" in its abbreviated form is "mike."
Finally, there was a sticky grammar and usage issue in which the pronoun has to have the same grammatical number as its antecedent.
[everyone in the vicinity held their breath]
"Their" is ______ and "everyone," its antecedent, is singular. You would never say, "Everyone were there." Everyone was there. Everyone is here. But ______ say things like, "Everyone held their breath" all the time. To give it legitimacy, copy editors call it "the singular 'their,'" as if calling it ________ makes it no ______ plural.
Solution
- yorker
- people
- longer
- plural
- spelling
- singular
Original Text
Mic'ed? The music industry spells it "mic" because that's how it's spelled on the equipment. I'd never seen it used as a verb with this spelling, and I was distraught to think that "mic'ed" would get into the magazine on my watch.
(Laughter)
New Yorker style for "microphone" in its abbreviated form is "mike."
Finally, there was a sticky grammar and usage issue in which the pronoun has to have the same grammatical number as its antecedent.
[everyone in the vicinity held their breath]
"Their" is plural and "everyone," its antecedent, is singular. You would never say, "Everyone were there." Everyone was there. Everyone is here. But people say things like, "Everyone held their breath" all the time. To give it legitimacy, copy editors call it "the singular 'their,'" as if calling it singular makes it no longer plural.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| copy editor |
3 |
| copy editors |
3 |
| house style |
2 |
| yorker style |
2 |
| doggie bags |
2 |
| vicinity held |
2 |
Important Words
- abbreviated
- antecedent
- breath
- call
- calling
- copy
- distraught
- editors
- equipment
- finally
- form
- give
- grammar
- grammatical
- held
- industry
- issue
- laughter
- legitimacy
- longer
- magazine
- music
- number
- people
- plural
- pronoun
- singular
- spelled
- spelling
- spells
- sticky
- style
- time
- usage
- verb
- vicinity
- watch
- yorker