When you are ready, proceed to the current exam . Read recent Word Court columns from The Atlantic Monthly, and browse the Word Fugitives archive, in The Court Record . Thus was born Word Court , which since 1995 has appeared in every other issue of The Atlantic Monthly, on the last page. Wallraff presides over the column in the persona of Ms. Grammar, a tartly judicious magistrate whose reverence for rules is leavened by common sense.
Readers can file suit by letter or e-mail.
This month Ms. Grammar's work will come to the attention of an additional audience, when Harcourt Brace publishes Word Court , the book. The subject matter of the book is as wide-ranging and unpredictable as that of the column itself. Barbara Wallraff came to The Atlantic in 1983. Since then she has reviewed the text of every article, short story, and poem we have printed, keeping a lookout for grammatical errors and infelicities. Writers and editors have come to appreciate Wallraff's relentlessly fastidious work, though it can be as relaxing as a dental probe.