Return to this issue's Table of Contents. Ms. Grammar G OOD etiquette is a convention, and so is good grammar. 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. The laws of grammar may be arbitrary. But arbitrary laws are just the ones that need enforcement. A modernized edition of a venerable classic of English usage brings changes.