NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather forecasts

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
    • The Great NZ Road Trip
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
    • Cooking the Books
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

The Confession Box: Mary Norris

5 Apr, 2019 07:19 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Mary Norris, the comma queen. Photo / Josef Astor.

Mary Norris, the comma queen. Photo / Josef Astor.

Each week Megan Nicol Reed asks a public figure to choose three of the seven deadly sins to confess to.

This week Mary Norris enters the box. The author of the bestselling Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, worked as a copy editor at The New Yorker for 35 years.

SLOTH

When asked to choose three sins, you came back with "indecision" for your third; eventually settling on sloth. Were you procrastinating?
Indecision is a form of putting off work. Once you decide - and this is not just writing but any domestic project, from having a window fixed to the dishwasher fixed to repairing the tiles behind the toilet that had a leak seven years ago - once you make up your mind how you're going to fix it and what you're going to do, you remove a barrier to getting it done. And I don't get as far as removing that barrier because the indecision just keeps me from … like if I haven't made a decision there's nothing I can do, right?

Much of your career must have been punctuated by deadlines though?
Actually I'm supposed to be writing a column for their [The New Yorker] website now. I say supposed to be because I haven't been filing those columns promptly at all. The print deadlines I take rather seriously and I know I should take these web deadlines seriously, too, because they are counting on having something appear regularly. But so far I keep stretching that definition. Here's what I think of as laziness: somebody tells me something is due on a Monday, I figure I have until midnight, Monday - and somehow that just means it's due sometime that week.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

ENVY

Sometimes I am crippled with envy of other writers. Do you think writers are particularly envious?
I think envy is a sin writers are prone to because writers are out there and their performance is being judged and because writers are readers, just naturally interested in what other writers are doing, you can't blind yourself to it. You know, no matter how successful you are, there's someone more successful than you. I really have no reason to be envious of any writer at all now. I've done more than I ever expected to get done as a writer. I published a single book and then I published a second book. But I can give you a very specific example of envy. I'm ashamed of it; the copy editor Benjamin Dreyer has put out this new book called Dreyer's English and it has had a fabulous success, he's sold something like 80,000 copies in a month. My book is more of a memoir and less of a style guide but I did still feel somehow usurped. And while I'm happy for him and it makes me, and this is true, really glad people are interested in such a book. This is a good sign for our civilisation and we need as many good signs for our civilisation as we can get - I'm envious of his sales.

GLUTTONY

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

In your writing you come across as quite the bon vivant, throwing a Halloween party with "copious amounts of alcohol and candy", enjoying "a negroni with lunch"…
I am surprised and a little embarrassed, that I have written so much about food. Many years ago there was an attempt by a friend to get me to write restaurant pieces for The New Yorker … But I was always ashamed to because I was overweight and I thought people would be, "Well, no wonder she's so fat if she's eating out at restaurants all the time."

Is your enjoyment of food and drink a battleground for you?
I have a very sweet tooth and once I let that get the better of me it takes a long time to tame it back down, to get back to eating oatmeal and stuff. My favourite food groups are carbohydrates and fat. And alcohol. Is that a food group? I would say I enjoy having a drink. It's an issue in so far as it is empty calories. There's no sight unhappier than that of me drinking a white wine spritzer. It's just too dull. It makes me sad. Take away this spritzer. Bring me a full-bodied white wine!

A reader once told me my profligate use of commas mars my writing. Do you over-indulge in any particular point of grammar?
Well, I like commas but, as a writer, I'm probably more disciplined than I am an eater. I don't like flabby prose. I like condensed and compact prose and I actually probably punctuate fairly abstemiously.

Mary Norris is a guest at the 2019 Auckland Writers Festival, May 13-19, writersfestival.co.nz

Discover more

Lifestyle

Quiz: Are you a grammar champ or a grammar chump?

15 Sep 04:19 AM
Opinion

Paul Little: I spy with my little 'I' a grammatical error

24 Feb 04:00 PM
Lifestyle

Louise Nicholas confesses her sins

22 Feb 09:30 PM
Entertainment

The Confession Box: Alice Snedden

29 Mar 07:27 PM
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Lifestyle

Travel

36 Hours in Singapore

09 May 08:21 AM
Lifestyle

Rice to the occasion: How a Queenstown brewery snagged gold at Tokyo Sake Challenge

09 May 04:15 AM
Entertainment

Lorde announces new world tour - but snubs NZ

08 May 08:14 PM

Sponsored: Top tier tiles - faux or refresh

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

36 Hours in Singapore

36 Hours in Singapore

09 May 08:21 AM

New York Times: Singapore celebrates its diamond jubilee as a thriving city-state.

Rice to the occasion: How a Queenstown brewery snagged gold at Tokyo Sake Challenge

Rice to the occasion: How a Queenstown brewery snagged gold at Tokyo Sake Challenge

09 May 04:15 AM
Lorde announces new world tour - but snubs NZ

Lorde announces new world tour - but snubs NZ

08 May 08:14 PM
Air NZ's premium economy v Skycouch: Which is the winner?

Air NZ's premium economy v Skycouch: Which is the winner?

08 May 07:00 PM
Sponsored: How much is too much?
sponsored

Sponsored: How much is too much?

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP