;

I heart the semicolon:

Americans, in particular, prefer shorter sentences without, as style books advise, that distinct division between statements that are closely related but require a separation more prolonged than a conjunction and more emphatic than a comma.

“When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life,” Kurt Vonnegut once said. “Old age is more like a semicolon.”

Used judiciously, of course; the semicolon’s one of the few advantages of academic writing.

8 thoughts on “;”

  1. It’s true; the semi-colon doesn’t get half the love it deserves. I suspect some people think it’s on the keyboard just so they can make winking emoticons.

  2. It’s funny how an author who was so emphatically against using the semi-colon is quoted. Vonnegut called them “Hermaphrodite Transvestites”.

  3. I adore the semicolon, Gwenda.
    Why stop altogether (.) when we could just pause (;) and then keep going? In this world of fast paced multi-tasking, stopping is something that we humans rarely do. So hooray for the semicolon! May it be given it’s proper place as a hip, fast-paced form of 21st century punctuation.

  4. Yes, I am a fan of the semicolon as well! I’ve always loved long sentences, and so the semicolon and I are steadfast friends. I dare anyone to find a single blog post of mine that does not make use of this darling little piece of punctuation.

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