Question from a Reader About New Yorker Style

Abigail, commenting on this old post, asks: Does anybody know if The New Yorker has an editorial style guide that one could lay one's hands upon? As an editor myself-- known as The Comma Queen by some whose work I have put a pencil to-- I would be most interested in seeing it.

Me, too.

I Googled "New Yorker Style Guide" and found a third-party mention of it here


But I didn't look much further. Anyone know?

Commas, Commas Everywhere

I've been buried under more work than usual lately, most of it deleting and inserting commas in long lists of stuff far too boring to waste your time with here.

The work is making me comma crazy. I finally take a 10-minute break to read a CNN article and see this:

(CNN) -- Acolytes of "Food Rules" guru Michael Pollan and other well-meaning foodies who've made corn a scapegoat for the nation's health crises, this week welcomed a new study from Princeton University that suggests high-fructose corn syrup causes more significant weight gain than table sugar.

Either that comma is an unwelcome intruder between the subject and the verb or, I'm, officially, losing, it.

Not Commas But Not Not Commas, Either

I'm pondering the commas in this sentence, which was is based on a passage from a CNNmoney.com article:

"Then someone sees, not words on a page, but a vibrant person sitting across the table from them."

From time to time I encounter these structures while copy editing -- the "not blank but blank" structures. I'm never confident in how to handle them commawise.

Should "not words on the page" be set off with commas, as it is here? Clearly, the phrase is an insertion -- an interruption. But, combined with the "but" before "a vibrant," the commas sever the transitive verb (sees) from its likely intended object: (a vibrant person).

Obviously, there's nothing wrong with inserting parenthetical information between a verb and its object. But when the result is to resume the non-parenthetical with a "but" that comes before the object of the verb, it seems to create a logic problem for the whole structure.

My inclination is to leave the commas out: "Then someone sees not words on a page but a vibrant person sitting across the table from them."

I should note: The original sentence was actually a little more complicated: "If someone sees, not words on a page, but a vibrant, energetic person sitting across the table from them, age becomes much less of an issue."

Those other, obviously correct commas seem to somehow make commas around the "not blank but blank" phrase more beneficial.

If only this issue were as easy as whether to eat turducken.

Comma Chameleon

I came across this comma usage in an AOL story today:

Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California said during an April 22, 2009 hearing on credit card reform conducted by the U.S. House Financial Services Committee …

For over a decade now, I’ve been getting paid to stick commas into passages like that: “ … an April 22, 2009, hearing …” The idea is that commas (among their other jobs) set off parenthetical information. So without a comma after 2009, the lone comma before it severs the first half of the sentence from the last. It’s almost like, if you read it aloud, it would be: “Waters said during an April 22. (Deep breath.) Two thousand nine hearing on credit card reform …”

The second comma makes clear that the first did not indicate a break in the sentence. It was working as part of a pair to set off parenthetical information.

People using “Inc.” almost always leave out the second comma. It’s easy to see why. The first comma could easily be seen as part of the proper name in “ABC Co., Inc.” Whereas a second comma comes at the point at which the name connects to the rest of the sentence. Still, according to us copy editors at least, if you use a comma before “Inc.” you need one after it.

But it seems that the second comma is getting less and less common. The lone comma seen in the AOL News example above seems to be becoming the norm. I’m left wondering whether I should change my mind about the necessity of that second comma and whether soon I’ll be starting every sentence I speak with, “Back in my day …”


P.S. I stole the headline for this piece from a 2006 Boston Herald interview about "Grammar Snobs." So, no props for me! P.P.S. I stole "no props for me" from the Seinfeld Soup Nazi, kinda. So maybe that makes me the Worst Person in the World. P.P.P.S I stole "Worst Person in the World" from Keith Olbermann, but I hope that's understandable, since I'm just a squirrel trying to get a nut ..."

And so on.

P.P.P.P.S. Apologies to Kurt Vonnegut.

Comma Commies

Over the years, I've encountered a lot of people who have strong opinions on the serial comma. They expect me to have a strong opinion, too. And I do. Here it is: I very, very emphatically don't give a hairy rodent. Use it, don't use it, fight to the death for either side. Go nuts. But I won't be taking up arms in that battle.

Quick refresher: the serial comma, also called the Oxford comma, is the comma before the "and" in: "red, white, and blue."

The Chicago Manual of Style, which is followed by most book editors, advocates the serial comma. The Associated Press Stylebook, which many newspapers follow, says not to use it. Per them, it's: "red, white and blue."

Academic types say the serial comma is more correct. (It's true that the AP position is a minority one.) And I think it's just lovely that people have the time and energy to care. Me, I have to WORK with both styles. It's all I can do to remember from one document to the next which style I'm supposed to be following.

It sure would be easier on me if the major style guides would agree on this. But I really couldn't care less whether they went pro-serial comma or anti. As long as I gets paid. (Actually, that's a whole other can of worms. The company for which I do most of my copy editing these days is all over the news for their darling little Chapter 11 stunt -- and they're four weeks behind in paying me! And I'm supposed to care about commas? Woid.)

New Yorker Comma Curiosities

I noticed recently some rather curious comma choices in the New Yorker. Specifically, its editors seem to prefer to set off with commas prepositional phrases of "in" + a year. They don't do it all the time, but they seem to do it a lot lately. Some examples:

When he died, in 1984, he was remembered mostly for his popular study of multiple-personality disorder, written with Corbett Thigpen, “The Three Faces of Eve.”

After receiving his doctorate, in 1963, and returning to Vancouver, he set about what would be his life’s work.

Few experts understand counterinsurgency and counterterrorism better than this former Australian army officer and anthropology Ph.D, who has advised the American, British, and Australian governments, was one of General Petraeus’s strategic whizzes at the start of the surge, in early 2007, and writes so well that you’d never imagine he’s spent his whole career in government, the military, and academia.

His good looks, charm, and verbal skills—qualities that made him such an effective predator—convinced many in the Tacoma community that he was innocent, up until the time he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, in 1979.

Most editors whose work I see would make those:

"When he died in 1984, he was ..."

"After receiving his doctorate in 1963 and returning to ..."

"... was one of General Patraeus's strategic whizzes at the start of the surge in early 2007 and writes so well ..."

"... he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1979.

Theirs are all valid choices. The writer or editor has a lot of freedom to decide which bits of information are "parenthetical" and thus should be set off with commas. But personally, I suspect this is just another example of the New Yorker thumbing its nose at conventional editing/writing wisdom.

Comma-dy

So I was talking to Paula Poundstone last night about commas …

Did that sound convincingly casual? Did I successfully mask my awe about getting to talk to a comedian I’ve admired for years?

No? That’s okay. I can admit it: I’m dazzled and resorting to name-dropping. But in the process I can also pass on a bit of information that you might find interesting.

It started last night when -- thrill of thrills -- I was one of the authors on a panel with Poundstone, comedian Robert Schimmel and authors Dan Kennedy and Beth Lisick (all of whom were hilarious, by the way). It was an event for Friends of Libraries USA and was part of the American Library Assn.’s annual conference at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Afterward there was a book signing. Once I finished signing copies of Mortal Syntax, I joined the line of people waiting for Poundstone to sign copies of her book, There’s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say. She was so gracious -- chatting up the people in line and dipping into a seemingly bottomless font of funny stories.

When I got to the front of the line, she told me a little about her struggles to help assure that her kids get a good education -- especially when it comes to grammar and punctuation. It’s an even tougher struggle than you might guess. Poundstone told me that, a while back, she had been talking to one of her kids’ teachers and she mentioned that she would like her kids to have a good grasp of how to use the comma. The teacher, according to Poundstone, said (and I paraphrase): “I don’t teach them about commas. Commas are going to be obsolete soon.”

I paused. Did this teacher know something I didn’t? Was he privy to some cutting-edge research demonstrating that the comma is melting away like the polar ice caps? (Self-doubt is my default response in these situations, by the way. You could tell me, “Did you know your middle name isn’t really Margaret? It’s Beelzebub,” and my first impulse would be to check my birth certificate.)

It was the kind of statement that could easily put grammar-minded people like you and me on the knee-jerk defensive. “No way, man! The comma lives!” So in this case I’m pleased that I seriously weighed the idea before deciding that the teacher was, more likely than not, full of crap.

Yes, commas are largely ignored in school kids’ text messages. Yes, this could change how and when they’re used. But, like grammar in general, commas arose out of their usefulness. To pilfer an example from “Eats, Shoots and Leaves,” consider the difference between:

Woman. Without her, man is nothing.

and

Woman without her man is nothing.

I think the comma will survive. If I’m wrong, that’s okay, too. It will just mean that we found some other way make ourselves understood. Until then, I’ll just be happy that no commas are required in the sentence:

Teachers who talk out their backsides should consider other careers.

Comma Magic

Reporters who do not read the style guide should not complain about their
editors.

Reporters, who do not read the style guide, should not complain about their
editors.

Big difference, huh? (I had forgotten about this example until I rediscovered it in a style guide yesterday.) The rule at play: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive clauses -- i.e. clauses that don't restrict or narrow down the subject. Use no commas when the clause is designed to do just that -- i.e. narrow down the set of reporters to just those who don't read the guide (instead of suggesting that none of them do.)