Mary Norris has spent more than three decades in The New Yorker's copy department, maintaining its celebrated high standards. Now she lends her vast experience, good cheer, and finely sharpened pencils to some of our language's most vexing problems in a boisterous book as full of loife as it is of practical advice. Readers--and writers--will find in Norris neither a scold nor a softie but a wise and witty new friend in love with language and alive...

"One of the preeminent linguists of our time examines the realms of language that are considered shocking and taboo in order to understand what imbues curse words with such power--and why we love them so much"--