12-07-2011, 12:28 PM | #31 | |
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http://www.dailywritingtips.com/prop...the-semicolon/ http://www.dailywritingtips.com/whit...her-the-comma/ There are rules. Don't confuse rules with dogma. The rules allow for options and choice, and yes, style. ApK (note my comment in the second article...I'm not claiming to understand the rules, I'm merely aware they exist....) |
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12-07-2011, 12:43 PM | #32 | |
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It also doesn't help that I often see them used incorrectly. I used to read someone's first drafts, and she could barely figure out where to put a comma. Didn't stop her from adding semicolons everywhere, though. Last edited by Suzanna; 12-07-2011 at 12:46 PM. |
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12-07-2011, 12:50 PM | #33 | |
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12-07-2011, 02:14 PM | #34 |
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I use semicolons all the time in my writing. They are a useful grammatical tool.
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12-09-2011, 03:57 AM | #35 | |
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Yes, of course you're using the semicolon correctly. The question is whom you're speaking to and how patient they might be with slightly formal language. You could also make a case for using semicolons deliberately to introduce readers to other kinds of language than the rigidly contemporary, but I personally would do so consciously and modally, and be ready to state my case tactfully if a reader or editor complained. The person who spoke of usage being a triumph of idiocy could be right in a narrow ironic sense, but that would suggest that writers had been idiots for centuries. Language evolves constantly to reflect changing habits and needs, and the result has as much to do with innovation as it does with entrenched misuse. English has never been a perfect language, but that's why it can be particularly expressive. Modern writers often use fragments and startlingly ungrammatical phrases, but that's because there has been continuous development of Flaubert's innovations (now traditions) in the name of interior narrative and fidelity to his characters' thinking -- notably free indirect speech. You can see this development in the modernists, obviously (Joyce and Beckett!), but you can see it in popular fiction, too. The Friends of Eddie Coyle, by George V. Higgins, for example, and the writers whose style that book influenced directly (such as Elmore Leonard's). That was an example, actually: I nearly used the phrase such as that of Elmore Leonard but chose to be more colloquial for the reader. (Hey, let's call up Elmore Leonard and use the phrase such as that of Elmore Leonard and see what he says. Odds are he'll be polite to disguise his irritation.) It isn't a question of being rigidly correct but of being alert to the conventions of usage and one's own consistency. I've split infinitives and ended sentences with prepositions in this very post, but I did so deliberately, with an ear to their rhetorical effect. Whether or not we ever succeed at striking a balance is a question most of us ask ourselves constantly. We ask until the day we don't have to or don't want to. Last edited by Prestidigitweeze; 12-09-2011 at 04:43 AM. |
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12-09-2011, 06:45 AM | #36 |
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And you are free to do that, but based on this thread and many of the links in it I am convinced its stylistic and nothing more.
Every semicolon example, with out fail can be replaced with a . and often with a conjunction.
The reason to pick one over the other? IMO, Style. |
12-09-2011, 07:06 AM | #37 | |
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The end result is all that matters. When you are expressing yourself in writing, what manner of phrasing and punctuation best conveys your intent? You can certainly replace a semicolon with a period but does the result read the same? Of course not. |
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12-09-2011, 08:06 AM | #38 | ||
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Oh, and about the author: Quote:
Last edited by Prestidigitweeze; 12-09-2011 at 08:10 AM. |
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12-09-2011, 08:08 AM | #39 |
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Ha! My kids and I just watched the whole Schoolhouse Rock DVD last weekend. Love it!
[rant] But one thing always bugged me about Conjunction Junction, he says "'But', that's kind of the opposite: 'Not this, but that." Nooo...'But' is not opposite. It's just an "'and' with an explanation." Surely they could have thought of a better lyric so as not to misrepresent 'but' like that.[/rant] |
12-09-2011, 09:48 AM | #40 |
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I managed to use a colon, commas, and a semi-colon all in the same sentence while writing this week.
“Oftentimes nobles lose fortunes for any number of reasons: mismanagement, theft, war, drought; it’s fascinating really.” |
03-07-2013, 05:06 AM | #41 | |
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Apologies for bumping this exquisite corpse piñata, but I happened to read this bit by Kurt Vonnegut in A Man without a Country and thought it illustrated the modern prejudice which semicolon users are up against:
Quote:
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03-07-2013, 05:31 AM | #42 |
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Ridiculous; semi-colons are a valuable part of punctuation and it's not rocket science to use them correctly.
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03-07-2013, 07:10 AM | #43 |
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I echo Harry's comment and I'll add this:
It borders upon the obscene and the salacious. 1) It was going to rain today; therefore, the man carried his umbrella. 2) It was going to rain today, so the the man carried his umbrella. 3) It was going to rain today, so the man carried two items with him when he left his house: An umbrella with flashing, kaleidoscopic lights; and a lousy book by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. that he eventually tossed into a rain-glutted gutter. I've always liked alliteration, the man thought, as he danced a happy jig and watched the swirling waters swallow Vonnegut. Don Last edited by Dr. Drib; 03-07-2013 at 07:17 AM. |
03-07-2013, 07:11 AM | #44 |
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What is this compulsion modern society has with comparing everything to "Rocket Science"? Rocket Science is so ... 60's; it isn't even that difficult. Being a "Rocket Scientist", with a piece of paper that says I am and everything, I can tell you that I have a MUCH harder time trying to figure out what the proper use of a semi-colon is. Not to mention dangling participles or ending a sentence with a preposition....
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03-07-2013, 07:39 AM | #45 | |
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It was going to rain today; the man carried his umbrella. Two contextually-related independent clauses, no splice needed other than the semicolon. |
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