68 “the horrible their”: Fowler, Dictionary of Modern English Usage, p. 417.
68 “Though the masculine singular”: Garner, Garner’s Modern American Usage, p. 740.
69 “If they can do it”: Marsh, For Who the Bell Tolls, p. 230.
69 “ ‘A person can’t help their birth’ ”: William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1847–48; reprint, New York: Penguin Classics, 2001), p .483.
70 “Such phrases are often alternated”: Garner, Garner’s Modern American Usage, p. 739 (entry for “Sexism,” B. The Pronoun Problem).
71 “the method carries two risks”: Ibid., p. 739–40.
Chapter 4: Between You and Me 78 “any exact notion of what is taking place”: E. B. White, from the introduction to “Will Strunk” in Essays of E. B. White (New York: HarperPerennial, 1999), p. 319.
79 David Foster Wallace lists: David Foster Wallace, “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage,” Harper’s, April 2001, p. 39. Later collected as “Authority and American Usage” in Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (Boston: Little, Brown, 2005).
82 “The King and I”: Example from Ben Yagoda, How to Not Write Bad (New York: Riverhead Books, 2013), p. 99.
87 “verbs of the senses”: Karen Elizabeth Gordon, The Transitive Vampire (New York: Times Books, 1984), p. 29.
88 “The who/whom distinction”: Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct (New York: William Morrow, 1994), p. 116.
89 “the dissident blogger, whom”: Jon Lee Anderson, “Private Eyes,” The New Yorker, Oct. 21, 2013, p. 71.
90 “If someone approaches”: Randy Steel, “9 Things NOT to Do After a Breakdown,” AAA New York, C&T 3, no. 3 (March 2014): 37.
Chapter 5: Comma Comma Comma Comma, Chameleon 94 The editors of Webster’s Third: David Skinner, The Story of Ain’t: America, Its Language, and the Most Controversial Dictionary Ever Published (New York: Harper, 2012), p. 281.
96 “But what principally attracted”: Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839; reprint, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 448, 449.
96 “The first house to which”: Ibid., p. 310.
97 “She brought me”: The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens, edited by Jenny Hartley (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 311.
97 “Often I have lain thus”: Herman Melville, White-Jacket (1850; reprint, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), p. 119.
101 “Before Atwater died”: The line is from Jane Mayer, “Attack Dog,” The New Yorker, Feb. 13 and 20, 2012, cited in Ben Yagoda, “Fanfare for the Comma Man,” New York Times, April 9, 2012.
103 “When I was in high school”: Marc Fisher, “The Master,” The New Yorker, April 1, 2013, p. 38.
104 “Eve was across the room”: James Salter, Light Years (New York: Vintage, 1995), p. 27.
106 “She smiled that stunning, wide smile”: Ibid., p. 181.
107 “It was as if they were”: Ibid., p. 231.
107 “The ship was enormous”: Ibid., p. 263.
107 “He sailed on the France”: Ibid., p. 262.
109 “Is there anything in your”: Jennifer Schuessler, “A Proper Celebration of the Not-So-Proper Modern British Novel,” New York Times, July 24, 2013.
Chapter 6: Who Put the Hyphen in MobyDick?
118 “How was it?”: Karen Russell, “The Bad Graft,” The New Yorker, June 9 and 16, 2014, pp. 97–98.
119 “My father specialized”: Edward N. Teall, Meet Mr. Hyphen (And Put Him in His Place) (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1937), p. 31.
119 footnote on “po-lop-o-ny”: Ibid., p. 19.
119 “It should be regarded”: Ibid., p. 14.
120 “Nothing is to be gained”: Ibid., p. 57.
120 “Did you ever see a hyphen”: Ibid., p. 77.
121 “an excess of academic affectation”: Ibid., p. 90.
124 “Oh, Time, Strength, Cash”: Herman Melville, MobyDick (1851; reprint, New York: Modern Library, 1992), p. 207.
125 posted online with artwork: See http://www.mobydickbigread.com.
125 “And the women of New Bedford”: Melville, MobyDick, p. 47.
129 “It is thought here”: The letter is described in Andrew Delbanco, Melville: His World and Work (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), p. 177.
129 “The proofs . . . were replete”: Herman Melville, Pierre, cited in Delbanco, Melville, pp. 177–78.
129 “Commas were sometimes used”: G. Thomas Tanselle, in Typee, Omoo, Mardi, by Herman Melville (New York: Library of America, 1982), pp. 1324 –25.
130 “In his letter Allan spells”: G. Thomas Tanselle, in Redburn, White-Jacket, MobyDick, by Herman Melville (New York: Library of America, 1983).
Chapter 7: A Dash, a Semicolon, and a Colon Walk into a Bar 137 “I know how you must feel”: Jeffrey Frank, Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013), pp. 253–54.
138 “In Dickinson’s poetry”: Cristanne Miller, Emily Dickinson: A Poet’s Grammar (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. 53.