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EvilpixieA — Fear Not thy Semicolon
Published: 2011-07-20 04:18:40 +0000 UTC; Views: 1021; Favourites: 14; Downloads: 12
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Description
Grammar is a force to be reckoned with, armed with such mighty weapons as: , : ; ' " . and ?. In short: quite an impressive arsenal. Unfortunately, one mighty piece of punctuation has been sadly both abused and underused over the years. I am here writing this to attempt to rectify that!Here, let me show you…
"As a child I used to jump off the roof of my house, it was all part of a fiendishly clever scheme to force my body to evolve wings and fly free around the world."
This sentence is incorrect. The comma alone isn't strong enough to hold a sentence together; I guess it hasn't spent enough time at the gym. A comma is only a breath or pause, not a transition. To put it simply, I have just violated the comma by using it in ways it should never be used and it may now require months of intensive therapy.
"As a child I used to jump off the roof of my house. It was all part of a fiendishly clever scheme to force my body to evolve wings and fly free around the world."
This is correct. But it isn't good. The full stop divides this into two separate points and loses the connection it would have if put into a single sentence. In other words, the full stop, (nickname; the end) finishes the thought. This too powerful full stop has split this sentence and separated the ideas forever… sad.
"As a child I used to jump off the roof of my house; it was all part of a fiendishly clever scheme to force my body to evolve wings and fly free around the world."
This is correct, and fantastic! The poor and neglected love child of the comma and full stop has won the day; beyond the mighty semicolon! The semicolon is both strong enough to hold the sentence together and wise enough to continue the 'thought' that the sentence is.
So… it has saved my sentence! Three cheers for semicolon!
Misused, underused and neglected by many a writer, the semicolon is in fact one of the most useful of grammar's many weapons with skills stolen from both the full stop and the comma. While not quite as subtle or soft as the comma, nor as brutish and sudden as the full stop it has its own unique purpose and use: to join like ideas into a single sentence.
And so I implore you, please do not neglect this perky little piece of punctuation.