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Ruth Gaskovski's avatar

The fact that I chose to read this article at 7 on a Saturday morning must say something about my love of punctuation and your ability to capture a reader's attention! I love semicolons; I wish I felt more confident in using them.

Came across more evidence that Vonnegut did not follow his own advice:

"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon."

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Joel J Miller's avatar

That’s a great quote. Apropos too; I’m reading A Moveable Feast right now.

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Ruth Gaskovski's avatar

I have to admit to not reading much (any) Hemingway because I kept hearing how tragic his stories are… (although his memoir might be quite interesting).

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Thaddeus Wert's avatar

I don't think I've ever seen so many semicolons, colons, and dashes in one essay before. Very clever!

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Joel J Miller's avatar

:) punctuation as sport!

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Luke @ This's avatar

It's better than Olympic Break-Dancing & twice as enthralling!

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Christopher Booth's avatar

Lovely, light-hearted, yet serious-minded. Thank you. As for rules, maybe the best comparison might be to jazz standards - the changes are (mostly) observed, but their interpretation is always up to the player. And nobody gets points for pedantry in jazz.

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Joel J Miller's avatar

I love the comparison to jazz! You can know the song, but it has to be interpreted—which always involves a lot of discretion.

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Larry Stone's avatar

A delightful movie for an editor or someone who loves words is "Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb." It's the only movie I've seen with a two-minute discussion of the semicolon.

I was intrigued by your next-to-last sentence, Joel: "Go on; try it; try it today!" It could also be written, "Go on, try it; try it today!" It's sort of the same meaning, but definitely a different rhythm. Art, not science.

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Joel J Miller's avatar

I love that movie. Gottlieb was a gem.

Rhythm is definitely part of the power of punctuation. It really comes through in the MLK example.

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Renee Hale's avatar

"What emerges from Watson’s historical and literary exploration is an appreciation for the art of punctuation over the supposed science, which has always been somewhat arbitrary and after-the-fact, never really able to keep up with developments."

Now I'm pondering what other categories or things we as society try to pin down with rules, to our own futility. As an engineer, I like rules and order. However, some things do seem to defy categorization and slip around, quickly becoming irrelevant. I might need to update my mental model of some things from "mostly stable but needing occasional tweaking, work with it as a system" to "impossible to fully define, work with it as art."

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Joel J Miller's avatar

Yes! A lot of our so-called rules are really just descriptions of what we see after the fact. But the problem is what we see changes and the rules lag behind.

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Chen Rafaeli's avatar

My native language is Russian....it's been really amusing to read -and comprehend how vast is that ocean, dividing cultures-and yet allowing to arrive and meet; and how cool it is there, for us to explore.

By the way, throughout all grade 8(last grade when one learns language as a separate subject) we were tortured with long abstracts from Russian literature, obscure enough (and obviously no Internet back then to quickly find and verify) but without punctuation-the idea was to guess it, and correctly too. We were graded on it.

I was the best in grade, well, it was in times when "Онегин, я тогда моложе, я лучше, кажется, была"-how the mighty have fallen since.

Thank you-great post!

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Joel J Miller's avatar

My pleasure. It is delightful to contemplate how alike our cultures can be, especially when accessed across the plane of literature.

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Vittorio Bonzi's avatar

I always use loads of both dashes and semicolons — but I write mostly in Italian; sophistication is a thing here

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Joel J Miller's avatar

You are blessed :)

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Kim Gronsman Lee, MD's avatar

Longtime semicolon fan; what’s not to like?!

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Joel J Miller's avatar

I know! They’re great!

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Natalie Kuchta's avatar

Thank you. Being a retired English teacher I really loved this. I defend using a semi colon but most don't listen to my explanation. I will continue to use them. I hate dashes. What does a dash even mean? It has no rules!

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Joel J Miller's avatar

Because the dash has no rules it’s flexible, but it’s also imprecise. A semicolon has narrower use and thus more specific meaning when employed.

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Lucy S. R. Austen's avatar

I do love a good semicolon. :)

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Joel J Miller's avatar

I could have guessed!

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Gary Arnold's avatar

You did it again! You make the mundane interesting.

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Joel J Miller's avatar

That’s infinitely gratifying to hear!

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Irshaad's avatar

Thanks - amusing and informative - however, I’m still not sure I’ll use it myself. But let’s see, it may tentatively pop up in some future writings of mine. I will definitely now pay more attention and try to notice and mark its usage in what I read. I tend to learn through osmosis, so hopefully paying more attention to its usage by other writers may give me the push to try it myself. Maybe, just maybe, I will try it; try it in the future; the future is now. Wait, did I use it correctly right there?

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Joel J Miller's avatar

Perfect!

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Carolyn Jones's avatar

I'm a huge lover of the semi-colon… maybe it’s the teacher in me? I tell students ‘show the examiner your knowledge of punctuation’ - maybe, subconsciously, its buried in my brain?

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Joel J Miller's avatar

Definitely!

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Gina Martin's avatar

I just finished reading David Crystal's book, A Fight for English, which shares the history of English grammar, punctuation, and spelling in a very relatable way. Thanks for recommending Semicolon. And for encouraging the use of semicolons.

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Joel J Miller's avatar

My pleasure! Thanks for the mention of Crystal’s book! It’s new to me.

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Adam Chrenko's avatar

Great article! Doesn't she mention also Tolkien's use of semicolons? That could be pretty interesting...

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Joel J Miller's avatar

She doesn’t. But that could be fun to investigate.

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Litcuzzwords's avatar

Very cool. Passed it along to Facebook.

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Joel J Miller's avatar

Hey, thanks!

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