February 20, 2008

How Funny; The Anchoress Loves Semicolons.

And so do I. We're both in Neocon's club.

My affection for semicolons has led to complaints in the past, from other bloggers who felt that I truly abused these handy little punctuation marks.

They are wrong, though—my real vice is the em-dash, which can be used in much more flexible ways than the semicolon.

Via Althouse, blogging over at The Court of Insty.


Note: You think I'm joking? What do you imagine copyeditors talk about over lunch and dinner? Substance? Or style?

Note II: At the risk of being accused of too much free association before I even take my nightly Ambien, does anyone want to place this quote?

You could say she has an individual style;

She's part of a colorful time.

Q: What sort of person actually inserts quotation marks into the song lyrics he or she quotes?

A: A copyeditor, of course.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:44 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 The older I've gotten the more I like semicolons. They beat starting sentences with conjunctions.

Posted by: Sean Hackbarth at February 21, 2008 08:53 PM (IpB84)

2 But what about special circumstances, wherein one might want to lend special emphasis to a particular clause?

Posted by: Attila Girl at February 21, 2008 09:19 PM (larLB)

3 I'm of the simpler school of using the semicolon as a replacement for the comma when the latter creates confusion. But I'm also of the school where punctuation is an art. I'm sure a craftsman could employ it well in any number of ways.

Posted by: Sean Hackbarth at February 22, 2008 01:54 AM (IpB84)

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