The author of The Gutenberg Elegies, English professor Sven Birkerts, once said in an interview, "I never see a sentence with a semicolon in it anymore. People don't tend to read the kind of writing that has semicolons. We tend to read the prose of the age, and the prose of the age, influenced by the ethos of electronic communication, is almost overwhelmingly flat, punchy and declarative.''
Birkerts made that observation a decade ago--well before the arrival of such punctuation killers as Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone. What we'd like to know is whether you have any use for the semicolon and if you think the mark is worth preserving. Please take our poll; if you have additional thoughts on the matter, click on "comments," at the end of this post.
Some Say Yes
- Not many people use it much any more, do they? Should it be used more? I think so, yes. A semicolon is a partial pause, a different way of pausing, without using a full stop. I use it all the time.
(British novelist Beryl Bainbridge) - With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I have a great respect for the semi-colon; it's a useful little chap.
(President Abraham Lincoln) - You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life.
(George Bernard Shaw to T.E. Lawrence, on The Seven Pillars of Wisdom) - Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath.
(American essayist Lewis Thomas)
Some Say No
- Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
(American novelist Kurt Vonnegut) - As readers require information in segments that are shorter and easier to read, semicolons are becoming a less desirable form of punctuation. They encourage overlong sentences that slow down both reader and writer. You can virtually eliminate semicolons and still be a fine writer.
(Deborah Dumaine, Instant-Answer Guide to Business Writing, 2003) - Did you know by the way that this book [Coming Up for Air] hasn't got a semicolon in it? I decided about that time that the semicolon is an unnecessary stop and that I would write my next book without one.
(British novelist and essayist George Orwell in a letter to his editor at Secker & Warburg) - Too many semicolons are tedious for the reader. Semicolons are also more characteristic of formal or literary writing, which means that some readers may not be accustomed to them. If your readers don't understand the semicolon, it will be more of a distraction than an aid.
(Jill Meryl Levy, Take Command of Your Writing, 1998)
More About Punctuation:
Comments
Strange that quite a lot of people have voted, but so far mine is the only comment.
I was surprised how heavily the semi-colon is winning the poll, but i suppose it will be mainly semicolonists(?) reading a topic with semi-colon in the title. (Maybe the 1% who clicked ‘What’s a semi-colon?’ only came here hoping for a definition.)
I defend its existence, as no other punctuation mark fulfils exactly the same function. I care so much that i’m blogging about it!
But is it a British thing to hyphenate, or am i doing something wrong?
You can’t make a proper list with only commas.
Sometimes, you don’t want the full stop of a period, but a comma would create a run on sentence.
We need semi-colons!
Sorry my comment came up twice (can it be deleted?); nothing showed the first time i hit ‘Say it!’, but evidently it had get through after all.
Hey, a semi-colon in its natural habitat! I nearly didn’t notice! 80)
I hate the semicolon. It serves no real function that cannot be taken over by the comma or the full stop. It does not exist in spoken language. I love the Vonnegut quote ‘all it shows is that you’ve been to college’ – that says it all. I never use it (and I studied linguistics and grammar at college…). To me, it signals the wrong kind of idea about grammar, that it is supposed to be superior to language and its speakers.
How else can you punctuate a sentence like this.
I have lived in Long Beach, CA; New Haven, CT;
Terre Haute, IA; and Istanbul, Turkey.
Vonnegut notwithstanding, the semicolon fulfills an important function in punctuation: it helps to link pertinent information into an extended string of meaning as pisatel6 explains.
felipeo
I regularly use semicolons in my writing, and I think it is useful to some extent. But, the problem is that it is misused more often than it is used properly. I’m an English teacher and I have to regularly correct materials that have semicolons in them and other teachers have written.
I think it should be saved but it’s slowly being bred out of the language (so to speak). This generation misuses it, so what will the next generation do with it?
Semicolons are useful; they are especially useful to programmers.
Jill Meryl Levy’s “no” quote (”If your readers don’t understand the semicolon, it will be more of a distraction than an aid.”) brings up an interesting point for today’s writers who are instructed to write with an audience in mind (no doubt from the influence of marketing writing on the Web): Does personal style have a place if its meaning is not always crystal clear? Or, functionally, do writers set communication standards, or are they at the whims of the age? (I suppose we shouldn’t ask traditional journalists that question…and maybe on that note, I don’t want to know the answer.)
I am a huge proponent of the semicolon; it’s an escape from the sales copy writing I do on a daily basis to get audiences to buy more, act now, and stay on the page.
I heartily endorse semicolons–unless, however, they are overused or used incorrectly. In fact, the semicolon is my favorite punctuation mark. I tell my students that’s it’s two punctuation marks in one, similar to a blinking red light. In other words, the semicolon directs the reader to stop briefly and then proceed. I know the metaphor isn’t completely accurate, but it certainly helps the students understand its use. My biggest complaint? When people use colons instead of semicolons.
WE NEED SEMICOLONS! There is nothing worse than reading sentences which are really comma splices because the writer doesn’t understand the use of the semicolon!! My students (I teach college English grammar) may not be familiar with this punctuation when they come to me, but they surely are proficient in its use when they leave me!
I vote for. It’s a useful beast. The person who says we don’t use them in speech is wrong of course; we use them all the time.
I’d venture to suggest that your final sentence:
Please take our poll; if you have additional thoughts on the matter, click on “comments,” at the end of this post.
contains at least one and possibly two extraneous commas. The comma after ‘comments’ is totally unnecessary, which probably renders the first redundant as well?
I love the semicolon. Technically, yes, it’s unnecessary. But it brings grace and sophistication to writing. It’s very possibly the only beautiful item of puncutation in the English language.
K.M Weiland said it masterfully. The semicolon is the only subtle punctuation mark we have. I use it and depend on it–perhaps too much. To say that periods (full stops) and commas are enough is laughable. Writers don’t know how to (or don’t bother to) use them, either. We must continue to use correct and desirable punctuation; eventually, the pendulum will swing back (heaven help us if it doesn’t), and those of us who have never wavered will be there to support those who must relearn the art of writing.
Semicolons are my favorite tool; they are classy, elegant, useful, intriguing, and, most of all (to borrow from my favortie teacher), “semicolons are sexy!”
Oh, well thank you so much for inviting everyone to abandon the use of my favourite punctuation mark. -_-
I read a lot of British authors and the majority of the modern day writers use commas in place of semi-colons. It really baffles me; using simply a comma between two independent clauses looks like a run-on sentence to me, and therefore amateurish.