3.5 stars. As a comma queen myself, someone who has made a career out of being a grammarian, I found Norris's book both amusing and illuminating. We grammar nerds love discussing grammar nerddom, and Norris does it beautifully. This book probably won't appeal to everyone — an entire chapter on why editors get attached to one particular brand of pencil might be something that fascinated me for 10 pages, but I couldn't see it working for many others — but it really does give you insight into what the wordsmiths out there in the publishing world are doing every day. To me the most intriguing bit of new information was right at the beginning, when she described how American spelling became Americanized in the first place. Why do Brits and Canadians have colour, honour, favourites, and go travelling, while Americans have color, honor, favorites, and go traveling? Because of Webster, and the fact that when he wrote his dictionary he decided wouldn't it be lovely to just knock out extra letters and go with a shorter, more economical spelling? I had no idea. But now when I'm editing a book with American spelling at the same time as one with Canadian, I know whose name to curse the entire time. This book was recommended to me by my stepmom, who read it and said, "Wow, I thought all you did all day was correct spelling. I had no idea your job was so complicated and layered!" Now if I could just get everyone else I know to read this! :)