What a difference an “a” makes!
“Affect” is a verb, and “effect” is a noun—except when it’s the other way around.
View more episodes of “Comma Queen.”
Comma Queen: Affect vs. Effect
More Comma Queen
The trick for choosing “who” vs. “whom.”
Sympathy for the semicolon.
Female trouble: the debate over “woman” as an adjective.
A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma.
Excuse me! Your participle is dangling.
Whichcraft—“that” vs. “which.”
Mary Norris began working at The New Yorker in 1978 and was a query proofreader at the magazine for twenty-four years. She is the author of “Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen” and “Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen.”
