Friday, February 29, 2008
A Sign of Hope
This story made me smile. Someone out there in the real world actually knows how to use a semicolon!
Never mind that the use is inelegant; it's technically correct, unpretentious, and practical.
I'll admit a certain fondness for the semicolon. It does so much more than just legalize the occasional comma splice, break a long list into digestible parts, or signify a wink. It indicates...wait for it...a certain (uh-oh) ambiguity (noooooo!!!) in the connection between ideas. It asks the reader to hold one part of the sentence in suspension while reading the other part. It assumes – brazenly, I know, and often with limited warrant – a certain sophistication in the reader.
It allows for some syncopation of sentence structure, some recognition of the actual flow of words. It facilities the careful and precise delineation of ambiguity, reveling in what lesser minds would consider a contradiction. Used correctly, it's refreshing.
(Yes, I know, semicolons don't actually revel. As an exasperated ex-girlfriend once told me, it's a &^%$%& metaphor.)
Semicolons are so much more interesting than colons. Colons, to me, are a sort of grammatical goose-step. This: is. They take 'declarative' to another level; they're almost dictatorial. Semicolons, like the winks they've come to signify, assume a subtler shared meaning, almost a confidence between writer and reader.
(And don't even get me started on bullet points.)
I'll admit having built up my fair share of linguistic pet peeves over the years. "Irregardless" isn't a word. "A whole nother" makes my flesh crawl. And I think there's a circle of hell reserved for people who routinely start sentences with the words "Being that..."
But semicolons, properly used, still bring a smile. They're linguistic underdogs, and it's fun to see them win.
What's your favorite linguistic underdog?
so what kind of geeks are we that we have our favorite punctuation marks?
I use too many semicolons, though.
"I love the semicolon. A period and a comma. It's like a party in my head!"
Just too funny not to share :)
And--ahem--aren't words as words (words qua words?) supposed to be italicized? Or were all those ruler-beatings I received in English class for naught?
Hear me out.
In Shakespeare, you'll frequently hear "nuncle" for uncle. Go back further, and you have "nadder" instead of adder. The history of the language is filled with words that used to start with an N but don't anymore because that N moved from the word to the article "a nadder" to "an adder" or vice versa from "mine uncle" to "my nuncle".
A whole nother is an unself conscious participant in that tradition, so I like it, even though it sounds wrong to anyone whose primary language is written English.
From where I sit grading freshman comp essays, I feel that a slew of simple English words suffer from the silly, unjustified prejudice that wants a long, fancy-sounding, latinate word in place of every short Anglo-Saxonish one. In particular, I'll take my stand for but.
Apparently, most kids are taught to never begin a sentence with and or but, but many of our best writers freely do so. MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" has whole paragraphs that start with it.
Ironic, no?
FYI, here's a fun test to find out which punctuation mark you are:
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/9611125433033087547/Which-Punctuation-Mark-Are-You
I'm an ellipsis! But I sure do adore the semi-colon!
My pet peeve is when the colon, of which I'm a fan, unlike DD, is used to announce a list after a verb. I like: science, music, chocolate, and journal articles that are accepted without revisions. Please, fellow writers, only put a colon after a noun.
DD, I'm glad that you managed to use a semicolon somewhere in the post. I was getting worried there for awhile.
: 7:33 PM I hate the business-speak tendency to make nouns into verbs. "Let's calendar that," "I think we should dialog about that . . ." Blech.
And I really like "dis," because it's a slang word that actually filled a need--a far more succinct way to say "act disrespectfully toward."
I can't stop myself. I have read/heard "take it for granite" many times, and it almost works. "Begs the question" meaning "makes one want to ask" rather than referring to the fallacy also bugs, but I really should get over that.
: 7:48 PM : 12:14 PM business card
No, my first thought was 'throw away the paper?' You see, NYC is a recycling city, and I couldn't believe they would suggest throwing away the paper rather than recycling. Yes, I understood that the ad was about picking up one's garbage, but still...recycle people, recycle!
And I wrote this without a single semi-colon, but I couldn't resist an ellipsis.
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