Ms. Michaels held a rather dim view of marriage, she said, partly as a result of her mother’s experiences both in and out of wedded matrimony. At their request, she forsook the name Kessler and became Sheila Michaels once more. Even Ms. Hamilton, whose newsletter had moved Ms. Michaels to action, was unpersuaded at first. “She said, ‘Oh, Sheila, we have much more important things to do,’ ” Ms. Michaels recalled in 2016. In the end, then, Ms. Michaels leaves a legacy both minute and momentous: two consonants and a small dot — three characters that forever changed English discourse.

Source: New York Times July 06, 2017 20:25 UTC