Of this book might not think its a great thing to deploy a single mom, but thats easy for you to say. You are trying to raise my children on what i was learning. The perspective was uppity. Which i think she was. The class angle is rare and its very real. If you think about it in a certain way, it sounds like you are looking down on all and desma wouldnt like that at all. So she is not somebody who wants to be seen as if it do. So there is something there in my live on the fact that i dont think it is great as a society to deploy single mothers. And i feel critical of that propensity on our part because i feel that the children are suffering as a rates told and desmas disagreement with me, i think there is a lot that we can talk about. You actually got around they were supposed to allow single mothers to have my spirit she kind of cheated. You are making an important observation. The National Guard was not recruiting single mothers, Single Parents to find out and desma got married right before she went to basic training. She was not in the position or she could have given up custody of her child which is the decision another person might make. She chose to marry her boyfriend so she was technically no longer a single mom. But there are many people in the forces who wind up in the situation later on, which is she got divorced and the marriage didnt last and she winds up a single parent again later. Now if you are married when you sign up and have custody of her children and later divorced and have custody of your children or a single parent with full custody you can still get deployment orders as patented. The longdistance parenting from her deployment in afghanistan and later in iraq is heartbreaking and she is trying so hard to be there for her kids and be a good mother. Anyway, im afraid we have to end there. I want to thank helen thorpe so much. [applause] please dont forget she will be sending upstairs. Thanks. [inaudible conversations] enough from the front and the press club of madison, mary norris offers two solutions to some of the most common grammatical problems. We are delighted to be hosting mary norris for her book between you and me pritchett began as if the checker at the Cleveland City pulled from a dutifully checking patients feet for athletes foot. Its strange to some annoyance but a major superhero origin stories, it is a fact that it is essential and foreshadows meticulous life spent defending one of the most venerated and celebrated style guides in the world. Too many here today and across the country, and mary norris is copyedited minitour occurs nothing short of superheroic. Reading between you and me, we see her humble beginning crossreferencing Article Topics all the way to the present day where she stands atop a skyscraper im a black ring pencil in hand, ready to defend the new yorker from all manner of assailants, grammatical, colloquial and otherwise. Please help me welcome transport. [applause] thank you for the amazing introduction. And thank you all for coming inside on this glorious day. We got lucky, didnt we . It is kind of true area so people are into reading when it is raining out. It is true about the foot checking, but i thought to give you an introduction i would visit the introductory part of the book that is actually about my career in the berry industry since we are hearing was on then. I went to rutgers university. That is where i chose to go when i got out of cleveland listed new brunswick, nature z. Because it had a renowned requirement of dairy science and while i was there a dictate one course in how to judge dairy cattle and i learned the differences between jerseys in brown swiss cows. Do not come in handy at all. But when i went back to cleveland after college i couldnt think of anything else to do. I called a local dairy and asked whether there were any openings for milkmen. At that it would be interesting to be in the dairy industry at any level. I had an affinity for years about owning a dairy farm. I liked cows. They lived across the cap forgot that life could weve never had a lady treads a milk truck but theres no reason not a myth that so he let me come in and talk to them. The plant was gleaming stainless steel, heated milk undercut the width of ammonia. It was the first time that could completely honest in a job interview. I didnt have any ears but it was sincerely interested in the dairy industry and you can tell from that that i had perhaps told a lie or two about the speed at which i type trying to get a job before then. I guess i didnt have to lie about the foot checking job either but that only because they didnt ask me if i knew what athletes that looked like, which i did not. On a frigid morning in february, i went along with a milkmen on a route in fairview park, a suburb on the buy side. The two sets of puzzle. A stick shift sitting down when you go long distances and the other for driving standing up when you are hopping between houses. The second set had two pedals could the clutch and brake were combined in one. When you needed to slow down or shift gears, who left the squeeze down the break on one title and you had to lift your right foot off the accelerator and balance on one heel. The route was available or they gave me the job. A generous friend lent me her car for a crash course in how to drive a stick shift. The ford man who was training me notice that i handled the chuck batters and did not mean down. The seat was designed to fold up and swing around to decide where it could be stowed out of the way. All of that had loosened it up so when i turned the Steering Wheel, the seats won in the opposite direction and i would find myself facing out the side in bed at the direction the truck was going as if i were on some disoriented Amusement Park ride. I was driving back to the plant standing up on hope park road which is the road in cleveland after the airport. I went through an underpass on the far side of the traffic light and i was almost under a nice but it was red so i had to slam on the break and steer while gripping the Steering Wheel balancing on one heel. I lost control. The truck crashed into a concrete barrier. The format was thrown into the ice cream freezer and i landed on the floor. He was okay. I was bruised and humiliated. The plant had its own tow Truck Mechanic and i wrote back wanted to buy one of his unfiltered camels. The fact that the plant had it down to attraction of led me to realize this had happened before but i thought it was a first. Performing baffling because the boss said he shouldnt of had me driving standing up and i got another chance. I had some really nice customers. There was a couple who bought only a pint of halfandhalf once a week for their coffee and some deadbeat of the kind of people who knew if they ever paid their bill in full you drop them. There is a man who rehabilitated queen ginger so contractions barrels, quarters, nickels, pennies and dimes on our belts. The houses had milk shoots her box is besides the door we put the milk between the storm door and inside door and shout milkmen. I didnt like the weird lady. It seemed not feminine side with holler milk lady and milk maid was a little too fanciful. I settled for milk woman which is a little bit too anatomically correct and made me sound like a wet nurse. So i muffled the last syllables. Milk woman. Add half a mind to stay in cleveland and tried to marry the boss son. Feebased beef cattle good i gave up the group to accept a fellowship at the university of vermont. While pursuing a masters degree in in english i cap but the interest in the dairy industry. Upn had an Agricultural School in an Ice Cream Cone program not unlike the university was complementary to milk cows that they were university cows. My first job once the academic life had worn me down was packaging mozzarella on a night shift in a cheese factory. A team of women wearing white rubber aprons pulled mozzarella out of salt water, labeled by magnum come to by magnum chemistry of the bags and stacks of boxes. I had a secret yen to drive the forklift truck. The popeye style muscles i develop my forearms catastrophe soon after i moved to new york. Sometimes on the sides of trucks making deliveries to pizzerias i still recognize the wholesalers, and the susie ramona in the red white and green on the sides of the trucks that deliver a cheese to pizzerias in brooklyn. I dont suppose i will ever belong to the brotherhood of teamsters again though i still have a show for his life and. Or have calluses on my palm from a standstill carrier full of milk. So i moved to new york and i got a job at the new yorker and the Editorial Library my first day they are there was a big snowstorm and most everybody went home, but i stayed with my boss, alan stark in the library until quitting time. When we were leaving, an editor named pat crowe got on the elevator with us. I noticed his good come of it green mud boots and set those are the kind of news we were in a cheese factory. He looked at helen and said so this is the next stop after the sheets jury . [laughter] a kind of soft peddled the dairy industry might editorial capacity after that, although with the came up once in a while. I thought for today i know youre all dying to learn about, since sorry i didnt wear my crown. I thought id give you your moneys work and then i remembered shed gotten it for free. [laughter] but i thought i would try to cover the three most important things about english grammar and usage. Some of them have to do it, as, some of them dont. But it seems to be more crucial to do today. So just to introduce what i do as a copy editor, this is from a chapter in the book called that witch. The issue is the use of that and which. Which whenever i amassed about it in public i fumble. So far i found it impossible to give a straight answer but i am going to try to stick to the book. I always forget in the popular imagination the copy editor is a bit of it which ended surprises me when someone is afraid of me. Not long ago young Editorial Assistant in her first tour of the new yorker offices pasta maker to be introduced and when she heard i was a copy editor she jumped back. As if i might poke her with a redhot or feed her a pound of commas. I dont make a habit of correcting people unless its in print and im getting paid. We wanted to change the course of the missile, harper away with a piece of prose. The image of a copy editor is someone who favors a rigid consistent v. , a mean person who enjoys pointing out other peoples errors. A lovely person just starting out in her career in publishing and is eager to make an impression. Or at worst, a bitter toward a person like to be a writer and instead got stuck. Avi is and crossing t. s and otherwise advancing careers of other writers. I suppose i had policies. There is a big fancy word for going beyond your promise. Its in websters second unabridged. So a lot of times, copy editing is about not going beyond your problems. Anticulture propagation arianism peer writers might think were applying rules and sticking it to make it to a substandard but just as often we are backing off or trying to find a balance between doing too much and doing too little. A lot of decisions you have to make our subject death. Or in tents, an issue that comes up all the time, whether to use that or which depends on what the writer means. Its interpretive not mechanical. The example in the book is that dylan thomas find the force that through the green fuse drives flowers. The force of that through the green fuse drives the flowers beard attested if you can take out the phrase what is that called . The clause. The relative clause. If you could do without it, then it is not restrict this come the something extra and you would use commas. If the sentence makes no sense, in this case the force drives the flower, that is not poetry. That means the clause is restricted and defined the meaning, in this case, the floors that through the green for use drives the flower. Not restrict his is anything else. Americans have agreed to use that when the clauses restrict venues which set off by commas when the clause is not restrict it. It works pretty well. But not always. An example of the clause everyone knows him to be their restrict the burden on restrict to is in the lords prayer. Our father who art in heaven. Matt do, verse six, line nine. Suddenly it is said and we are all in church. Just where is god . I think it is not restrict it as indicated by that. That is the phrase who art in heaven doesnt define the father. It just tells where we live. It is as if you could in their either way. Our father who by the way lives that have been except that our father is the grammatical term for direct address. In direct address there would be no need to tell god 30 years. So in the original context, and it is a cycle. If there are no commas, the implication is whoever is praying as another father. Joseph . Considerably it is restrict it to identify the heavenly father as opposed to the earthly one. Putting theology aside for a moment i might face peeking for my siblings and me, our father who art in cleveland. We would all understand that i was talking about our one and only dad in cleveland. New testament greek did without that, and the sensitive in translation has been up for grabs at first and. The latin which comes with saint jerome. Not restrict it. You can hear the comma. The english translation from the book of prayer makes it our father tran 11, which art in heaven. Even if he did later change it to you. God here is the creator, but other in a figurative sense and in a monotheistic tradition there is only one. But a modern anglican version makes it simply our father and has been, which is restrict the period our heavenly father, not an earthly one. One English Version does without thatcomma. Its a little weird. You have to admit the restrictive one is more direct. It almost goes out of its way to snub the earthly father. Do not restrict it is acknowledging that he is the father of us all in making known of his whereabouts. Im not religious, tree. So that is not a manitoba that i know a period going to persist with it. The other huge issue in English Usage today is gender. He not english blacks a genderneutral word before a pronoun of both tng. This becomes sensitive to when it becomes sensitive to the people in our lives. I am going to read a little from my chapter on gender. Perhaps the most intractable problem hovers around the consensual use of the masculine pronoun to include the feminine than the antecedent is mixed he or she or unknown or revalidate. As the last fashion of chromatic gender and the english language, the third person singular personal pronoun, he come the sheet, ham, hers, and the ancient words surrounded with where have become the most ticklish subject in modern English Usage. If the english language has some prop early organized, a word which meant he and she and i could write is shown or mary comes, he will want to play tennis. Which would save a lot of trouble. There have been many attempts to come up with a genderneutral pronoun. It would be called at the same pronoun. For instance, him or her, tom and tom and which would be borrowing from entering. Sad and here. These are used by an online group devoted to bondage. None of these have caught on but we had the venerable english language uses pandit h. W. Fowler in his book modern English Usage. He sees three makeshift solutions for this deficiency in our language. We can use to socalled masculine role in which he thunders to permit that the masculine or feminine pronoun. We can use here she, himself or herself however awkward or we can research at the nongender specific plural there, which bends the number will want finessing the gender. That is actually what is happening and what is going to happen. But we prescriptive this or against it and we will hang onto her pronouns for as long as we can. I hate to say it, but the colossal use when you meet his or her is just wrong. It may solve the gender problem and there is no doubt it is taken over the spoken language but it does so at the expense of numbers, and antecedent and get it as all the time, certainly in speech. It is not fair. Why should a common gender plural program, are feminine and not doing down, our kings and queens in jest. Nobody seemed to take very seriously a fourth possibility. Why not mix it up a little . Why cant a woman is feminine pronouns if she feels like it and what is stopping a man for once in a while throwing in her or she. Ryan garner was modern american usage. He entertains us very briefly, but he thinks it could be dangerous but a male writer could be making it even worse and teasing women, but i personally find when a male writer uses a feminine program i find it very in hearing. I know that it was a thing that david foster gave him ascend to your providers have started to do it and i think that in a male writer in the use of pronouns is admirable. Singing the odious of the small minority of men who are secure in their masculinity to use seven and third person singular. So i think it is possible that the makeshift come more easily. Sometimes her, sometimes him because ive experienced pronoun transplants. Nothing makes it clearer how intimately and deeply pronouns are embedded than having to alter them to refer to someone youve known all your life. When i started studying italian i was trying to figure out which nouns are amended and which are masculine and its not always easy. Because it is a notice in the next masculine. All kinds of tricks to it. Was trying to figure this out, and gender of the set of the text that came into my life. My younger brother announced he was trained gender. Hes two years younger than me and we have been close for the state that we at close to be grouped together in cleveland. They both escaped to new york. We were friends, calm for not, drinking buddies. This chapter goes on to describe the pronoun were simply fun and im happy to say my siblings and i come to my sister and i are good friends now. What has really jumped out in this paragraph. I dont know if you know the sentence deane was two years younger than me. I got so many letters about that sentence. People are reading along in the book and they think they should read no mistake because theyre absolutely right and im sorry if there are mistakes in the book. That is not one of them. Ive been doing these videos for the new yorker and i just made one about the word fan and i try to answer all these letters at once so i could just answer the letter saying please see my video. Then can be a conjunction and i also learned third grade that sentence should have been d. Was two years younger than i because it would introduce subordinate clause i think. And youre supposed to hear the understood younger than i was. Do you need a pronoun that is in the nominative case. But then its also prepositioned in the dictionary. You can look it up. If its a prepositioned it takes the object of case. Founded by me and him and asked. So i stand by this sentence two years younger than me. One person wrote in and said which is also true and im thinking about making that change. But the point that i want to make is that kind of get stuck on what they learned in third grade and happens to all of us. My teachers name and we diagram only for a couple of days. So i am not a sentence diagramming junkie. But it is also a prepositioned and its also prepositioned that you can use prepositions with the appropriate prepositioned which is the object of pronouns and the only note that i would add to that is somebody might notice and am about to launch you into a very intimate discussion of gender and family. And that is not when you correct someones grammar. [laughter] [applause] and since we are on pronouns in the title of the book is between you me and one day that i found that it do feel quite abstain shall about is the title between you and me. Some people have a bad habit of saying between you and i are they use the nominative program when they should using the object is program. I try in this chapter to diagnose the problem and correct it and im so glad that people who organize this did not put me on stage with Steven Pinker because that would be really horrible as someone who thinks its okay to say between uni. Hes got a really great hair. It would be horrible to be up on stage. When i was in graduate School Living on my own and the vermont countryside, i decided i should learn how cars work. I wanted to be selfreliant. A java 65 plymouth theory in a dark blue green. It had a huge windshield which was great for scenic driving and sunsets of the v8 which meant nothing to me. I knew how to podcast and check the oil and change a flat tire but that was about it. My father had discouraged me from learning anything about the work that the internal combustion engine. When i said i wanted to learn how cars work is that its easy. Ill tell you everything you need to know. You put the key of the commission and turned it. Thanks, dad. So i tried to take a course in modern mechanics one night a week at the local high school. On the first night deanna mechanics teacher used a word ive never understood the meaning of peter gasket. Have blown one wants on a friends car going too fast and i knew that it costs a lot to replace than the car would never be the same. At last i would find out what he guessed out what a gasket was raised my hand and asked what they gasket. The teacher looked like a used car salesman to find it by using three other words that i didnt know the meaning of. Piston, carburetor. And still not sure what they gasket it. Ive got quite a bit about what it is, by the way. I think i understand now. Kramer has an intimidating terms. You dont need to know them in order to use the language. But the key in the ignition and turn it. Eb white admitted before working on elements of style he was the kind of writer who did not have any notion of what is taking place under the. To understand how the language works you have to roll up your sleeves and join the ink stained wretches as we name the part being careful to define them in a way that makes them simpler instead of more complicated and see how they work together. Just between you and me, i suffer as a whole body of the english language shudders when a shoe salesman trying to gain my trust links forward and says between uni or when a character in the movie complaints to a crawl but its just not right lumping you a night together but when the winter at the Academy Award for best actress thanked a friend forgetting sally and i together. Maybe its the heat of the moment. Maybe people think of me might be okay at home where you can be vulgar, but it cant possibly be right in a formal setting. This bryan garner who i mentioned earlier devotes a column to the whole problem of between uni, noting this is a grammatical error committed almost exclusively by educated speakers trying a little too hard but stumbling badly. This kind of thing occurs all the time. On an old episode of the honeymooners, ralph had jilted at bart and found another boeing partner and he says to norton, we have already weve learned that her caddie and die. Ralph is trying to show his superiority. Hes not the most articulate guy. But by putting the other person first, you, sally, teddy, he and the others have let order to convince using the wrong pronoun. First, let us praise the impulse behind all the slips. Salesman and the emotional damage some movie or the scriptwriter and the movie star offhighway by putting another person first. But its gently point out if they occasionally put themselves first they would know they had it wrong. No one would became a confidence between the eye and you are complaining because someone was walking together. I think a friend are getting together. They probably would not say weve already been served by. But he might. So if you go ahead and put yourself first, you can hear wii is right. Between me and you come a lumping in the together. If you still feel impolite and your mother a first grade teacher would disapprove, move to the other end and have good grammar and etiquette. Between you and me. Thanks for getting sally and me together. In the case of ralph kramden, it is more ridiculous if you make a character sound more ridiculous and because it shows pride in the need to feel superior. It often exposes ignorance to last the viewer. The dialogue forward. The link with iran wealth crammed inside. They say that kate and i. , eni, tammy and i are units in people tend to keep them in variable, even when their function in the center dictate baby change to kate and me, the key had me, penny and me. I love the king and i paired it between you and me i can do without getting to know you. [laughter] a friend a fine starter to face the conversation after her son said to her that is what they did for no land and die. No laymen may she said. Her son argued the language has evolved and today many people with say it was actually wrong. Then he added the thinker, as in sinker of hard and parental units. Besides, who cares. Well, why exactly do we care . Why is it wrong to say between uni. You can even tell your children now you have to learn your grammar if you want to grow up to be president because barack obama size things like thank you for inviting michelle and die. I got excited when i read a passage in the book on girl. The woman remained in the car the whole time. A pacifier toddler in her arms, watching her has been in trade cash. That is the correct grammar you know. Her has been in the come end quote. Way to go, Gillian Flynn at. They sell as many billions of books ethnic Donald Sulzberger spared vader every listed with the characters thought, not the authors, and the character turns out to be just the sort of appetite entitled snob who gives good grammar a bad name. [laughter] so in the next five minutes i will attempt to give the grammar lesson. I feel like i should have a lovely assistant. She saw something in half. The most important bird is the verb to be in all its glory. Grammarians know it is lifted for. Many prefer lengthy. I have to say that turned my junior year of college. It was my first inkling that english grammar to be interlinked. The function of the verb is to fit nouns together to conjoin them as a plumber fits pipes, screwing the mail into the female. These are actual terms from plumbing, to make it to one. The verb functions almost as an equalsign. I am a copy editor. My plumber is a saint. You are their reader. The nouns and pronouns in the sentences all fall into the same category. It is called its case. Now that is the subject. I come to you, the plumber and announced that it it links to, copy editor through the verb is also in the subject to case. That is the power of the verb. The latin term for this subject is easy. You know that nominates an english means to me. This kind of verb transfers across some kind of that entity from the subject to another now at too closely identify the subject called the object. The mechanic inspects the car. It fails inspection. The engine needs oil. The verb points forward to some name. In english we need to know who did what to whom. Mccain says this kind of nonor object is i never learned any of this stuff. We learned as children how to reflect pronouns, but it takes a while. Her as a sweetheart is perfectly good tv talk. But that cant get a different cause for the nominates case and both in the subject the child says she is a sweetheart. The editorial libraries to call her has been from work and announce yourself by saying hi, it is i. That shows what stuff how it was made of. When mr. Burns from the simpsons find out that homers father used to wrestle under the name reaching ape shouts to you or he. His excellent grammar marking him as the villain. In transitive verbs reflect the subject solid transitive dirt kind of verb, and in transitive verb directs the action of the subject to an object. The in transitive verb expresses some action purely at the subject is self. Humpty dumpty sat on the wall. There are a couple of verbs that have to do with the sentences that are in transitive herbs. If you come the scene, dcom, prove, rename are also in transitive verbs. When we Say Something tastes good, not well, we are showing that is called a subjective complement or send in. But good reflects back on the subject. Its not a matter of which was densely developed a meaning of the first. I felt bad. Not i felt that they appear to feel badly would need need to about in that way. The verb felt used as bad as a rather than simply using the use of adverb to modify itself. One might reasonably ask of the kidneys the object is for the subject that i said it is me again which i think its fine to use. Im not that extreme. Why cant we use this object to it for the objective. Why cant we say between uni. Grammar is a little like a plumbing system. Some systems are designed to dispose as toilet paper. Others are more delicate and decided to capacity for 15. You can flush one play in a system built for two playas but if you force two playas into something that tolerates only one, you are asking for trouble. I dont know that ive made all of this chris a clear, the you can it at your leisure. Its an interesting mistake ill say that. The pronouns were more formal. As if english had separate forms for i am he, the way italian and french and german have separate forms for you in the familiar and formal. It is not a formal version of me. It does sound more intimate somehow. Maybe it cant eventually her someone wants to avoid. The counterparts of the object to case. Me, him, her, us, then our softer and more malleable. Maybe it is something to do with the object that enables subject bold subject which take responsibility for action. Maybe it would help if people practice at dinners between you and me, me, me, me. If you prefer nonemotive explanation, try this. The head gasket as i understand it is a see how keeping the oil weather lubricates engine side of the car part. Carburetor, where the field mixes up the oxygen in just the right proportions to fire the pistons to keep the motor running in the car on the road. The pronouns are the gasoline and announce that the air. The system is the gasket that keeps everything running smoothly. You notice it only when someone it. [laughter] and if that doesnt work for you, just put the key in the ignition and turn it. Thank you. [applause] im here to answer your questions. Just a reminder, questions for this microphone. We have about 15 minutes. Hopefully impressively, so keep them as they are intended to be there to give up the popular usage and accept people hopefully means what it does and presently doesnt mean soon it means now. Well, thank you. That is a question that comes up at the new yorker. At the new yorker we dont use hopefully. It has been accepted at the Associated Press and there is no holding it back anymore. [laughter] my solution to this as theres nothing i can do about other people. But i dont have to do it myself. Said the same for you. Presently doesnt mean what people think it means. Presently mean for the future. It doesnt mean in the present. Presently mean for a little while, and. So that is a different issue i guess. Better not use it at all. That is what i would say. Its amazing there are more questions. I could sing and dance. [inaudible] is this true at the new yorker also . Like i wouldve gone, i would have went. Maybe you could just briefly explain the past participle and tell me if its true in other parts of the country. That is bad grammar wherever you go. Seesaw scene. It was like chalk on the black board. And of course i see the president , and i have seen is the past perfect and the participial form of the verb. The two versions like sneak and snack. I think the dictionary puts sneak. I would never say i sneaked in. It just wouldnt come to me. And that is sent in that i copyedit you have to decide. Q. But the writer in the straitjacket where you have to use the first form the dictionary gives where do you let the writer have her own voice and use the last proper. Its not less proper, its just an alternative. And i let the writer used the alternative. That is still bad grammar. I thought you were going to talk about the past perfect when you came out. Ive gotten a lot of interest in that form of the verb. I had gone. A lot of people used out and they dont need to. Shrink, disappeared as the past tense. Spacebar people say shrink. I shrink my tshirt. Thats because the movie honey i shrunk the kids. Unless sent in and carries that you cant put it in. Another thing the only thing we can do is stick to our own good usage and use it ourselves. Theres no getting other people to do it our way of life they want to. So, thank you. Giving your colorful work history, how did you become a copy editor and how Teacher Learning on the job develop . I did in fact learn on the job. I started at the new yorker that Editorial Library when we take it apart with razor blades. I wanted to help put it together. My first job outside of the Library Website got to do something called sound reproof reading, which is the last step between print, between the proof and the print and you are just comparing the last version that was regenerated by the editors and proofreaders at a new version and making sure they are the same. That department of everything came together. You copy changes to the editor, the author of my fact checker on to a same proof. I got in trouble because they convinced the wording of something. You should have a rubber stamp. Anyway, i saw what the proofreaders did in copying their changes. When i first wanted to be a copy editor, from the place in the library could see a viewer window to a window on the next higher floor. I could see the copy desk of the women who had that job. I could see her get up, turn around and Consulting Firm is dictionary. That was the job i wanted. When there was an opening i applied for it and i didnt get the job. I didnt have any experience. I tried to spin it as a good attribute because i wouldnt have anything to unlearn. I did not get the job at that time. After collating for a while i did learn enough from us that when i was able to work on manuscripts, the job of copyediting at the new yorker is really like a sieve. You dont have any opinion they are. Giving new york spelling, using words like noel on words like cooperate and reelect which we get teased about a lot. You play a little with comments. Very conservative. Just the serial commas in the comma after an introductory phrase or clause. That is how i came to do it. I was terrified for the first year that i was on the copy desk of doing too much for doing too little. Both are bad. I kind of had to do too much before i learned to do less. So it swung back and forth. And learned by trial and error. How do you feel about some of the new word that are going to task you with something. Or might ask is that you bought, blah, blah. Some of those sound tighter than others, dont they . [laughter] that is something the english language has been doing again ever since the english language with english language, making other parts of speech out of this fail. The bake sale was something. As they come into language, and the people who are god and the ones who carry on the language, there is not a lot you can do about them and a great course of events. As i said, i dont use them myself. I feel like i am trying to masquerade as someone who just graduated from college. And hasnt had a chance to die her hair. But it is inevitable. One word hello. Im still not sure which part of speech it is. It is short for how well the period i queried it in something and i was persuaded it has its own tshirt. We are going to have to get used to it. We permit them in the new yorker kind of gradually. But again, its inevitable. This sale has happened. Thats going to happen. There are a lot more that dont occur to me. It is not such a terrible thing to turning down in reverb. Turning a verb into a noun is a little bit different and that is what is going on now. The last night and last night and rachel not as interview of Hillary Clinton, she said the democrats are doing terrible at law, blah, blah. I generally have a great deal of respect for intellect to rachel matthau, but can you comment on the disappearing l. Y. Rachel matthau said that, not Hillary Clinton did . Well, i have to cut brought castors a lot of slack because they are really in the hot seat and if they face an wrong, they just have to bear alone. They just have to go with it. She didnt do such a terrible thing and i think you could probably make a case for occasionally using an adjective as an adverb and call a colloquial. Lets just give her that. But if Hillary Clinton says that, we have something serious to can that are. We will wrap up with two final question here. When you mention doing too much or too little, i am wondering when the copycat to you, are you ever attempted how much are you tempted to work on the story in terms of organization or a logical issue and what kind of relationship do you have with the editor at that point. Generally i dont work at the level of structure. I work at the level of sentence and maybe paragraph, but mostly sentence. So it did just come out the other day in a piece i was working on a michael sector. If there was one sentence he was trying to say too many to and rely on the word and i just didnt get it in the piece was going to press