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Subject:
From:
Nick Carbone <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 29 Mar 2016 19:27:46 -0400
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And with a flattering picture to boot. The review is by the New Yorker's
copyeditor Mary Norris, and it appears in the Times Literary Supplement as
"Whichcraft" at
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1681143.ece

<excerpt>

His aim is not so much to enforce rules as to provoke debate. He wants you
to look beyond the meaning of the sentence to the choices made by the
writer and the editor.

You consult a handbook when you want to fix something – you don’t read it
from cover to cover. You can, of course, study it systematically so you
know where to find something when you need it. It doesn’t hurt if the
author has a little personality. Expressions such as “I think”, “I
suppose”, “I would lobby for”, “many of you might disagree with me here”
are scattered throughout the author’s commentary, giving the book a
friendly, conversational tone. Once in a while, Cioffi lobs in an
intimidating word without providing much context– “Grammar and usage are
not simply arbitrary and apodictic intellectual constructs” – as if to say,
“Would it kill you to pick up a dictionary?”

[. . .]

Because Cioffi chooses some examples from the *New Yorker*, it was
inevitable that I would come upon a sentence that I had had a hand in. It
happened on page 199. This is from David Denby’s review of *Revolutionary
Road*, in Cioffi’s section on commas before *that* and *which*: “There’s a
sourness, a relentlessness about the movie which borders on misanthropy”.

</excerpt>

It's worth going to the review to see what Ms. Norris says about Frank's
take on the sentence.

The review's a good read.

Congrats, Frank.



-- 
nick.carbone at gmail dot com
http://ncarbone.blogspot.com

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