Interview with a semicolon | Tom Gething re: reading
Semicolons are odd things. I’m fairly certain I use them correctly, but when I do, they almost always get edited out of my prose. I suspect a prejudice exists against semicolons; Editors are confused by them and therefore don’t use them. (Some grumpy editor will read that last sentence and tell me I should’ve used a period instead. See? Grumpy! My blog, sorry.)
Check out this very clever and funny blog about the much-maligned and neglected semicolon: Interview with a semicolon | Tom Gething re: reading.
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I’ve had editors perform semicolonoscopies on sentences. And I told them to put everything back, just as they found it. Tone-deaf dunderheads.
To strike a piece of punctuation is akin to saying there’s no need for subtle changes in the tempo of music, no need to temper breath when you’re playing a woodwind, no use for subtle shifts in tension when you’re touching guitar strings. Punctuation is the start-stop-stutter that helps us shape the sound.
Semicolon included.
Joe, could you please craft elegant responses like this for all of my posts? (It makes me look good, somehow.)
Nice post! Thanks for sharing.