O O Ø O O O O
Semicolons
It’s a truism of our time that despite its ever-increasing population, the world is a lonely place. And none find it lonelier than those who choose, with Quixotic vigor, to adopt and defend a rigorous adherence to the conventions of spelling and grammar. So imagine my joy upon reading yesterday, while conducting my regular pd.o browsing, “I’m serious about the semicolons…”! It is always a moment of celebration to discover a fellow traveller on this near-empty highway; how few of us actually pause to think about semicolons, let alone care enough to be serious about them! However, one often discovers that we’re travelling in slightly different directions. If only we could adopt the same convictions: for Evan, it’s a personal jihad against semicolons; for myself, I’ll admit, I advocate a heavy application of a solid whacking device and insect repellant against anyone employing the word “irregardless”.
To borrow from Lynn Truss’s best seller on punctuation (and let us pause, for just a moment, to fully savour the effect of typing the phrase “best seller on punctuation” … ah…), “we have nothing to lose but our sense of proportion.” Thus I was even more delighted to discover that Evan’s sentence continued, “… and am willing to exercise my security council veto to disqualify anyone who thinks they’re a good way to structure a sentence.” One cannot help but be enthralled by such passion about punctuation and devotion to personal style conventions.
And yet, I can’t help but feel some hint of sadness that the proprietor of pintday chose as his object of disaffection the lowly semicolon; had you chosen instead to take a stand against the interrobang, despite it’s audacious efficiency, I could have adhered to such a request. So too could I have honoured admonitions against the use of asterisms, or even the much maligned alinea, and then possibly have become pintday’s newest scribbler. But, as is so often the case, the personal convictions of those of us who have lost our sense of proportion (”sticklers”) have come into conflict. Though much abused, the semicolon has at least three convenient and generally acceptable uses: to provide a long pause between related independent clauses where a period would sound too abrupt, yet a coma would be incorrect; to join clauses in a list, especially where such clauses themselves contain comas, and thus could not be separated by comas without introducing confusion; and to create a little winky smiley to convey a sense of ironic humour.
;-)
Even so, I can’t find it in me to call Evan’s semicolonic prohibition mistaken, or even misguided — such personal preferences are about style rather than correctness; where correctness is merely about clarity and efficiency of communication, style is just as concerned with æsthetics. Who can condemn another’s efforts to make their communication beautiful? Non-sticklers may be amused by one or another’s sticker’s anachronisms, while fellow sticklers take heart in them. I’m reminded of an acquaintance who had a near-religious conviction that the letter Q was egregiously misplaced in the Latin alphabet, and that its proper place, as was clear to any thinking human being, was immediately preceding the letter U. After any quantity of beer, this topic was sure to come up, complete with a diatribe on the nature of diacriticals and the perfidy of the Emperor Claudius. (This acquaintance was also, as you might expect, a proponent of the Dvorak keypad, which was inevitably the subject next ranted upon). To most listeners he was at best tiresome, and at worst mildly insane; his insistence that the re-location of the letter Q be adopted as a major plank in political party platforms rang of sheer folly; but to the few fellow sticklers in his sparse audience (ie me), his thinking had a certain undeniable logic and, more importantly, reflected a passionate conviction that the minor details of language mattered deeply.
And so I’ll conclude without any special pleading; indeed, I doubt this little communique will even grace the good pages of pd.o, infested as it is with at least ten semicolons. I’ll note that those semicolons are, like American precision bombs, placed with surgical accuracy, designed to cause only a little collateral damage (possibly limited to Evan’s brain pipe). Good luck in your quest, pintdayers; I look forward to your future rantings.
Drew Avis
July 18, 2006
OOØOOOODCCLXV
July 18th, 2006 at 8:10 am
Further to this bit of cheekiness, I give you the superior semicolon-free version of this rant.
July 18th, 2006 at 8:41 am
I agree whole-heartedly. I, too, feel a deep set animosity toward the use of an English word. In this case, it would be the poofish “thus”. Talk about your pompous words. Just strike that one right out of the ol’ dictionary for me.
Personally, I like to use a rule of thumb passed on to me by some old fart with nothing better to do then spout useless sayings about English grammar. The rule is something like “If it makes you sound like an A-hole to say it, don’t put it in print.”
So, there you go.
July 19th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Personally, I’d wage the war against the comas. Robin Cook still owns those.
July 19th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Semicolons pWn j00…1337!!!11one
I think I just hurt myself…but I still love the lowly semicolon.