If we sacrifice the semicolon, will the sentence live on?
Earlier, we were musing about the alleged death of the sentence. We didn’t understand it. Didn’t we frequently, ourselves, muster a sentence or two? But then the Voice Inside Our Head replied, rhetorically, “You call that a sentence?” Our sentences weren’t just NOT sentences; they actually killed The Sentence as they were constructed. We sometimes hate the Voice Inside Our Head. How could we not?
We have new evidence that the sentence is not dead! It’s simple, really. If we aren’t completely sure that the semicolon has passed away, tossed into the rubbage bin with a wink, then surely the sentence has received a premature burial. The French started in back in April, though maybe the whole thing was a joke, oui? John Henley writing in the Guardian exhausted the topic, we would have thought. Every clever thing that has ever been said about the semicolon was in his article. And as a good journalist must, he left the question open: Dear, reader, it is for you to decide. But then Slate’s Paul Collins got in on the fun and proved that Henley had left some things unsaid. His point was simply that the semicolon is either always misused or always dying; we’re not sure which.
We have struggled to have an opinion on the semicolon, and a real opinion, not just a wisecrack. We find that we use them just to give our pinky a bit exercise from time to time. See? We’re just not capable of it. And did you notice the short sentence there? We aren’t just irreverent about semicolon usage; we frequently employ short sentences, even “non-sentences,” instead of erecting handsome, well-made sentences, with their interlocking pieces secured by the semicolon.
We could go on: Something makes us think that if we continue to talk about semicolons, somehow we aren’t killing the sentence.
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For me, the point of punctuation is to help the reader easily understand the intention of the sentence. A semi-colon gives you a bit more of a breath before charging forward than a comma does. Hopefully the move toward eradicating the semi-colon doesn’t mean our sentences are getting shorter. Or does it?
Comment by Marc Acito — June 30, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
Yes, a longer breath, but not quite a period, for me, too. Also I think of it as a “logical” sign: the “weight” of the clause to follow is equal to the weight of the clause preceding. (And I hang on to “proximity” in meaning.) And yes! Short sentences, fewer semicolons. Or even NO semicolons. No semicolons, no “complexity”; no complexity and all of French letters is out of business! At least that’s what our reporters were saying. In the post, I purposely employed far more semicolons than usual, just to see how that “felt” and it “felt” pretty darn good!
I just opened your Attack of the Theater People to a random page, namely 159, and I found a perfect trifecta of semicolons! “He quizzes me on the names of the people in R&D (which, I learn, stands for research and development, not rhythm and dance); he reads me passages from The Art of War (”All warfare is based on deception”); and teaches me trivia about Eddie Zander’s native Oklahoma (soon to be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the shopping cart, invented in an Oklahoma City Piggly Wiggly in 1937).”
Sweet! Note the equality of “weight,” down to the parallel use of the parentheses! At one point, when I was more Taliban about these things, I might have insisted that the final clause include the subject again (not the “he” just by implication), but that’s silly. It abuses the ear with the “he”, which is the point perhaps of your comment? The sound, I mean? By the way, I find the parenthesis to be yet more interesting than the semicolon!
Comment by Barry Johnson — June 30, 2008 @ 9:04 pm
Punctuation is, quite simply, the road signage of the language. Stop, pause, yield, caution, slow down; in the case of the colon or the dash, it means the following is related to the preceding in a way that is too immediate for a full stop, even though what follows might have its own subject and verb, independent of the subject and verb in what precedes it. Punctuation is the musical marking of the language: when one breathes; (semicolon) when, in its lack, one chooses to rush forward breathlessly. Therefore the rules are not hard and fast, no matter what Miss Grundy tried to teach you in seventh grade English class. That doesn’t mean that punctuation can be scattered around willy-nilly: It has, and demands, a rigorous logic. But in an important sense it is highly personal: It has to do with your own music, your own language, your own delivery, your own voice — how you want your sentences to be spoken (yes, spoken, not just read) and understood. To me, Faulkner was a master of punctuation. That’s why he could write those labyrinthine sentences and have them so easily understood: All the road signs were in all the right places, precisely where he wanted them. So was Joyce a master of punctuation, but you’d better read him aloud if you want to get the effect of his cadence. The semicolon is under siege, perhaps, because it’s so often misused (although not as often as the wayward apostrophe, as in, “The apocalypse is mere second’s away.”). That doesn’t mean the semicolon isn’t a valuable tool, used with precision and linguistic empathy.
And, yes, Marc Acito rocks.
Comment by Bob Hicks — July 2, 2008 @ 11:48 am
By the way, I notice that Paul Collins, who wrote that witty piece on Slate, is a Portlander: he teaches writing at Portland State University, and is the author of an entertaining book about Tom Paine’s bones and their peripatetic travels after his death, “The Trouble With Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine.” This man should well and truly be a Friend of Art Scatter. (And, speaking of language — what else could one speak of — does one write ON a blog or online magazine such as Slate, or IN one?)
Comment by Bob Hicks — July 2, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
Yikes. My cup runneth over so from your praise that I need a mop. And flattery will get you everywhere. Thank you and please keep up the good work. I love the thoughtful dialog you bring to all of the arts.
Comment by Marc Acito — July 10, 2008 @ 4:32 pm