Mary Norris and Jane Caro: Why does ‘i’ come before ‘e’, except after ‘c’?

Word nerds – this one’s for you. The New Yorker is famed as a haven for the hardcore; a literary institution with a mythically meticulous devotion to grammar and its rules for use. Copy editor and grammar guru Mary Norris has been at the heart of The New Yorker’s cherished linguistic traditions for more than thirty years. Her latest book Between You & Me reveals her joy in words and language – with insights and incitements on punctuation, emoticons, swear words and comma splices, as well as correspondences