A Brief Pause

"With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I gave a great respect for the semicolon; it's a very useful little chap."--Abraham Lincoln

Never has a punctuation mark caused more debate than the semicolon. Put grammar snobs in a room and bring up the semicolon, and suddenly everyone's throwing bar stools at each other. There's no middle ground in the battle for/against the semicolon. It's all out war.

Lynne Truss (my person hero) "called it a 'lovely example' of proper punctuation."

 

Donald Barthelme claims, "the semicolon is ugly, ugly as a tick on a dog's belly." (Not on my Christmas list this year, Don.)

Cormac McCarthy went so far as to start on, "the 'idiocy' of semicolons."

But the semicolon isn't just going away. It has a long history of love and rejection. I'm on the love side. (You can probably tell if you've read my posts.) The semicolon isn't around just to make essayists seem smart. They extend a thought, allow a little more room than a sentence would usually be willing to give. Sometimes ideas need a little space; that way, the reader can take a brief pause, assess what he/she's thinking, and continue on without being stopped full out. A writer who doesn't consider the semicolon is like a lover who doesn't understand foreplay. You can't just start fucking and assume you've made your point. Sometimes things need to build the right way.

Maybe we should ask Mrs. McCarthy how she feels about the semicolon.