Category Archives: Little Words

For the Next Style Issue

Benjamin Chambers writes:
With a few exceptions, The New Yorker has never gone in much for featuring tidbits from its past issues, but here’s one from a short Talk piece by Ian Frazier from the October 10, 1977 issue that should be highlighted in the next Style issue.
Attending a Parsons-New School lecture called “Fashion for the Consumer,” Frazier found “the most interesting part” was the slides shown by Dorothy Waxman of fashions seen on the street. Here’s the punchline:

One of the slides was of a woman stepping off a curb holding a little girl by the hand. “‘Look at this beautiful woman!’ said Dorothy Waxman. ‘Look at the stunning neutral palette of colors she has chosen&#8212the hat just a slightly brighter shade than the jacket. The colors aren’t flashy, but they really come alive. And look at that beautiful little blond girl. What a wonderful accessory!'”

Tonight at the Maison Française: More Appetizing Restaurant History, With Fresh Balzac

At least online, there are no longer tickets available to tonight’s New York Public Library discussion of William Grimes’s Appetite City, with Grimes, Ruth Reichl and Dan Barber. But for another, free angle on restaurant history, NYU’s Maison Française is hosting “Balzac, Restaurants, and Gastronomy,” with author Anka Muhlstein and Olivier Muller, chef de cuisine at DB Bistro Moderne (7:00 pm; via the discreetly indispensable Platform for Pedagogy).

Against Em Dashes, With Exceptions

“The Em Dash: Friend or Foe?” That’s the title of a blog post by the wonderfully named writer Elizabeth Ditty. She’s doing NaNoWriMo and has some opinions on “that dastardly punctuation mark,” which she also calls “the troublesome turncoat of the punctuation world.” While we cannot agree that our favorite dash is dastardly, we do love rereading the rules (the AP variety, in this case), which provide comfort even in the most turbulent times. And, after all, she adds, “So, as you can see, there really are plenty of instances where the em dash acts as a true friend.” Feeling dashed? Don’t–just read her post. –E.G.

Something Is Going On With That George Saunders Story

Jonathan Taylor writes:
I don’t read New Yorker fiction that regularly. I don’t bring up a New Yorker story and say, Did you read…? I did both with George Saunders’s “Victory Lap.” And then the person I say it to, who also doesn’t talk to me about New Yorker fiction, suddenly says she’s been thinking about it ever since she read it.
Emily recalls a similar flurry of people being struck and moved en masse when Lorrie Moore’s story “People Like That Are the Only People Here” came out in the magazine in 1997.
It’s true—you should read it on paper. On the subway, tonight.

Get Me Rewrite: Tolstoy IS Out of Copyright

Jonathan Taylor writes:
Some may try to slide by with “curating,” but others know the power of really editing. Henry Alford had a brilliant piece on the October 2 edition of the radio show “Studio 360,” asking writers about books they fantasize about being able to change—and how. I particularly like longtime New Yorker contributor Patricia Marx‘s idea for retitling Anna Karenina, and Sandra Tsing Loh has hilarious plans for The Bridges of Madison County: