The Semicolon. That unwanted step-child of the colon. And, I guess the comma, too. Probably your keyboard as well. How rarely you get your due. So little used, and when so, often incorrectly.Besides, the semicolon get all that bad press. But someone else might say, "hey, bad press is still press, at least it's staying in the public consciousness." Well, not with this kind of hate. Here are some of the haters.Kurt Vonnegut (from A Man Without a Country):If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.
Donald Barthelme (from "Not Knowing"):
"Style is not much a matter of choice," he paused then to ask: "Why do I avoid, as much as possible, using the semicolon? Let me be plain: the semicolon is ugly, ugly as a tick on a dog's belly. I pinch them out of my prose."
Apparently, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, and E.B. White (and I shockingly do not own the Elements of Style) were also opponents of the semicolon, but I couldn't find any proof in my basic Google research.Now in looking for these quotes, I found that many odes to the semicolon have already been written. So I'll try to do a little something different.
So, what's a semicolon good for? Mostly it tends to be used for lists, such as in the case that a list contains clauses or multiple clauses that should not be separated by comma. Most beautifully, though, is its use as a connector of two separate independent yet related clauses. When used correctly in this manner, great impact can be observed as two different but related thoughts are conveyed in glorious sequence.
Labels: donald barthelme, e.b. white, elements of style, ernest hemingway, hate, kurt vonnegut, punctuation, raymond chandler, semicolon
