Your Semi-Colon Ain’t Like Mine. Maybe.
Jul12009
So I am back at work on AKMG, and revising what I’ve written and thinking about the Wild Ride copy edit (which went to Bob yesterday, so now it’s his nightmare) all of that has made me think about punctuation. I used to be an English teacher, which meant that punctuation was rules, as in two independent clauses without a conjunction must be joined by a semi-colon. I was all over The Chicago Manual of Style. And Strunk and White. And The MLA Handbook. Then I became a writer and thought, “Maybe not.”
The thing about writing is that it’s all about sound. Even when a reader is reading silently, she’s hearing the words in her head. So rhythm becomes crucial; where those pauses and full stops go, how they give meaning in their lengths and intensities, how the words feel means everything.
So a period does mean that a complete thought has been concluded with a subject and a verb, but it also means a full stop followed by a long pause.
Like this.
And a comma is short pause, really just an intake of breath. Like this.
And a semi-colon is a longer pause, a little more break, a little more time to switch gears as it were.
Like this.
If you think of periods, semi-colons, and commas as lengths of time, they become crucially important as a way of giving meaning and emphasis and creating rhythm, and their technical correctness becomes moot. That’s why you find run-on sentences in love scenes: the POV character isn’t taking a breath, all her thoughts are flowing together as her mind rushes. That’s why you find fragments in the speech of somebody who’s out of breath: that character needs those full stops or ellipses to take in oxygen. That’s why short, parallel independent clauses are linked with a comma: “I win, you lose” doesn’t have a semi-colon length pause in it because, to a writer, that’s not a comma splice, that’s a complete thought.
Ellipses and dashes are even stronger. An ellipsis (. . .) is technically an indication that words are missing. A dash (there are two, en-dashes and em-dashes, and we’re talking em-dashes here) is usually used for a parenthetical construction. But to me an ellipsis is a long thoughtful pause, indicating that the speaker is suppressing something, while an em-dash indicates an abrupt interruption, something that makes the speaker leave off speaking, or a break to show that somebody else is speaking at the same time.
So I use ellipses at the end of dialogue sentences to show that the speaker’s voice trails off as she thinks or sees something that distracts her, or in the middle of dialogue sentences to show that he or she is self-censoring:
“The medium would produce ectoplasm,” Dennis said. “Usually cloth of some kind, although one medium used part of a sheep’s stomach.”
“And nobody noticed she brought it in with her.”
“She had it hidden in her . . . .” Dennis faltered and made a scooping motion with his hand.
“Bag?” Emme said.
“No, in her . . . ,” Dennis said, a flush starting.
“Oh. Vagina or rectum?”
“V-vagina.” Dennis looked around to see if anyone had heard.
“Well, some women will put anything in there,” Emme said, looking at Suzie.
And I use dashes to show a stronger break, probably not of the speaker’s choosing.
“You and North,” Suzie said, impervious. “You’re back together?”
“No,” Emme said.
“Because if so, you and I must–”
“Here you are, darling,” Southie said, shoving a glass full of booze in Suzie’s face. “Come over here and tell me about your day.” He took her elbow and turned her in the direction of the couch, mouthing “sorry” over her head. “Did you find a ghost? Tell me everything.”
“Emme and I were just–”
“Oh, you go on ahead,” Emme said. “I’ll go check on the kids.”
I don’t think parentheticals belong in speech or thought–those are more appropriate in non-fiction–so I don’t like dashes being used that way in my fiction because since I write in close third limited, the whole book is speech or thought.
And don’t get me started on exclamation points! Which should be used only when the speaker feels violently about something, the way I do feel about exclamation points! I feel they should be used to rarely that when one shows up, the reader is truly galvanized! Because otherwise the POV character sounds like she’s hyperventilating! Exclamation points: Just Say No!!! I confess that I also like exclamation points for when a character is trying too hard. As in false enthusiasm:
When she opened the door, there was Southie’s foolish, handsome face beaming at her.
“Emme!” he said, sounding like he was in a Broadway musical.
“Southie,” she said, sounding like she wasn’t.
And then there’s italic type, which technically is not punctuation but has just as much impact on cadence and meaning. Conventionally, you italicize all direct thoughts and do not italicize indirect thoughts, but you also italicize for emphasis wherever you need to disrupt the natural rhythm of the sentence or wherever you want to make one word stand out in order to characterize the speaker. So italics have a huge impact, not only on a scene but also on the point of view character who’s using that emphasis. If the character is normally calm, one or two instances of italics are all you need because any more and she’ll sound like she’s hyperventilating:
“I’m trying to exterminate this house for you, North, but first somebody has to burn those damn bodies. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go to plan B.”
“Go to Plan B.”
“Oh, come on, North. With your money, you could hire somebody to kill people. All I want is two century-old bodies that nobody cares about dug up and burned.”
“Emme, it’s easier to find somebody to kill people than it is to find a necrophiliac who does cremations. In England.”
Emme tried to be understanding, but he wasn’t helping. “Look, you want to know why you can’t keep a nanny? Your freaking house is haunted. And I can’t take the kids away because Alice breaks down. She’s this close to picking things out of the air as it is. But she’ll leave if the ghosts are gone. I’ve tried asking them to leave, but that’s not working. So get their bodies burned and they’ll have to move on because there’s nothing linking them to this earth.”
“And you learned this where?”
“TV,” Emme said. “Hey, it’s damn hard finding out this kind of information. All Google gave me was exorcisms.”
All of this is to say that The Chicago Manual of Style should never be the last word in punctuation and usage because, while it’s a great guideline, it has nothing to do with making story come to life on the page. It’s the sound that matters, not the rulebook.
Well, it matters to me. Your semi-colon may differ.
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66 Comments to 'Your Semi-Colon Ain’t Like Mine. Maybe.'
On July 2, 2009 at 12:28 am Merry the CB said...
No! No! Bad idea!!! You’re going to encourage non-former-English-teacher writers to defenestrate Strunk & White and Fowler! Ack!!!
I can see that there are times to break the rules. I afraid some people will translate that as “Screw the rules.” Case in point: Mercedes Lackey’s books. I know, I know, people love her work. But she should be charged with criminal abuse of semicolons.
The semicolon is supposed to be used in place of a period when you want to link two independent clauses. The point is that the two clauses belong together; one thought that should not be separated into two isolated sentences. What M.L. does is throw two unrelated clauses into one sentence, and it drives me crazy because I keep trying to find a relationship in them.
A made-up example of her style:
Cheese sandwiches make me itchy; the bottom of the ocean is a good place to find shipwrecks.
No, I can’t find a better example; I returned that one book and never read another of hers because it was too distracting.
Freedom is not a license for chaos – Norton Juster
On July 2, 2009 at 12:52 am Jenny said...
Actually, I kind of like that sentence. I do understand what you mean about trying to find the meaning since that’s throwing you out of the book, but itchy cheese and shipwrecks . . . I could do something with that.
On July 2, 2009 at 1:11 am Merry the CB said...
Please feel free
On July 2, 2009 at 3:50 am Strop said...
I have never learnt the whole formal punctuation thing as I was at junior school in England during the “pupils will find their own way” phase. So I read this
and my brain hears this
and I have subconsciously adopted the Jenny approach where punctuation is used to highlight how someone speaks. Which is possibly why I love Crusies and hate Literature.
What really interests me is this:
Does this mean AKMG is set in England?
On July 2, 2009 at 8:40 am Jenny said...
No. It means the ghosts came from England.
That was my other title. It Came From England . . .
On July 2, 2009 at 4:17 am Karla said...
Yes, I so agree
Long ago in college English, I read an essay about exclamation points. The author compared them to other people’s children who jump up and down and DEMAND attention. I have never looked at an exclamation point without remembering, lol.
On July 2, 2009 at 4:46 am Reb said...
I’ve used that how-does-it-sound approach to teach engineers who seem to be allergic to any punctuation. I get them to read their stuff aloud, and tell them to listen to where they pause, and put a comma or full stop there. Then I take it a step more technical and explain the difference between commas and full stops. Strunk and White might still turn in their graves at the result but it gets people pretty close to correct.
AKMG sounds great!
On July 2, 2009 at 5:35 am Theresa said...
As someone who’s only ever written non-fiction, this all was really, really interesting. Thanks! (couldn’t resist the exclamation point. :+)
On July 2, 2009 at 8:48 am JulieB said...
I believe all this points towards the idea that you have to know te rule to break it well.
On July 2, 2009 at 9:03 am Karen J. said...
There is a certain teacher I work with who always litters her emails with excessive exclamation points. It’s sort of like talking too loud and too fast to hear what anyone else is saying (which she is frequently capable of doing). Seriously, this alone has cured me of overusing them in my writing.
On July 2, 2009 at 9:24 am McB said...
Jenny, I think it’s a lot like what you and Bob have said about breaking rules: first you have to know what the rule is and have a good reason for breaking it.
I can see using punctuation creatively to create the appropriate pauses that let the reader hear the character’s voice. But deliberately choosing an emdash for effect is an entirely different thing from throwing it in there out of ignorance and laziness.
In other news, in an excess of joy a certain CB named CC just blew her entire paycheck on an exclamation point sale! And being a pal, I feel obligated to help her fritter them away before they go stale!
On July 2, 2009 at 9:53 am CT said...
Well put! This is something I feel SO strongly about.
Everything you say is true. It’s important to learn the grammatical rules so we can all communicate with a semblance of order. Everyone KNOWS that the period means the end of a thought and an initial capital means the beginning of a new one; otherwise, we’d never understand each other’s writing. However, grammar and usage is so freaking subjective. You need only pop over to the CMoS Q&As to see that. (The CMoS editors are always saying, “Well, you can do it this way, or you can do it that way.”)
I’m a huge convert to this way of thinking. Is there a name for us people yet? Because it doesn’t always go over so well in my office filled with editors who still want to use “Web site” because CMoS 15e says it is so.
On July 2, 2009 at 10:08 am MJ said...
“The question of ear is vital. Only the writer whose ear is reliable is in a position to use bad grammar deliberately; only he knows for sure when a colloquialism is better than formal phrasing; only he is able to sustain his work at the level of good taste.”
Why, that would be Strunk & White, supporting your point despite the non-inclusive language.
On July 2, 2009 at 12:00 pm Jenny said...
Good old Strunk and White. They never fail.
On July 2, 2009 at 10:13 am McB said...
Questions, questions: is an ellipses considered one punctuation, or three? If you use them more than once, are they ellipsi?
On July 2, 2009 at 10:21 am Chelle said...
“Some women will put anything in there.” Good lord Crusie, you almost ruined another keyboard. I barely managed to only burble tea on my shirt.
Thanks for the long post. You have no idea how much I needed a little Crusie love today!
Big Smoochies
On July 2, 2009 at 10:27 am Eva said...
ZOMG, thank you. We think alike. My CP is an English teacher and I drive her batty with the commas and clauses and lack of them. I know where they go, but they’re PAINTSTROKES, dammit. What I hear in my head, is what I want translated to the page and I’m using the tools I have (punctuation) so the reader can hear that. And, if I omit a comma, it’s because a character is rushing.
On July 2, 2009 at 10:47 am Carla said...
“you also italicize for emphasis wherever you need to disrupt the natural rhythm of the sentence or wherever you want to make one word stand out in order to characterize the speaker”
Thank you for this. One of my biggest hangups is remembering that I’m writing the story, I’m not directing it. That’s the characters’ job. I tend to throw in italics where I think emphasis is needed, but the reader may not necessarily hear it the same way in her head. The key problem I find with the written word is personal translation. Someone once emailed me, “Who gives a rat’s a$$?” and I thought she was mad at me. She wasn’t. We didn’t straighten that argument out for two weeks. Since then, if italics aren’t absolutely necessary, I try to live without them. Let the characters express the emphasis through action, not punctuation.
On July 2, 2009 at 10:55 am Kira said...
An excellent post; should be required reading for all writers everywhere. I wonder if punctuation usage changes as language changes…
But ..um.. putting something _in_ one’s vulva? Is that anatomically feasible? Between them, perhaps, but in? That threw me, right there.
On July 2, 2009 at 12:03 pm Jenny said...
Oh, hell, did I use vulva wrong, too?
One damn thing after another.
Off to google for “vulva” . . .
On second thought, maybe not.
On July 2, 2009 at 11:45 am Bethany, Cherry Clawed said...
I had a professor in college (for a Writing in Public class) who started off by reminding us that the written word is supposed to be a way of making something fleeting (the sounds of speech) permanent. He stressed the evolution of punctuation and always listening to our papers. This greatly improved my writing, as well as my understanding of when to use certain punctuation. I still tend toward either extreme with commas (either using them way too much or not nearly enough) but my speaking patterns are actually that way; I either speak quickly with no pauses or insert all sorts of Captain Kirk-esque pauses. I’m working on it.
On July 2, 2009 at 12:07 pm Jenny said...
Okay, vulva is external, vagina is internal. So I’ll have to change that to vagina. Without italics. Although I’m still not sure it wouldn’t have been the vulva because otherwise, she’d have to fishing around during the seance . . .
All of that, by the way, is true. I did my research.
On July 2, 2009 at 12:42 pm K.L. said...
Sorry, but I gotta ask this one. Have you corrected the grammatical error in this part?
“I’ve tried to asking them to leave, but that’s not working.”
Is it “tried asking them to leave”, or “tried to ask them to leave”?
On July 2, 2009 at 2:51 pm Jenny said...
That’s a typo. I probably had “tried to ask them to leave” and decided “tried asking them to leave” was better and just missed deleting the “to.”
On July 2, 2009 at 12:48 pm robena grant said...
It’s vagina, Jenny. The vulva isn’t muscle, just the external folds so it…um…sort of doesn’t have a grip if you get my drift. (Take it from an old nurse who has seen too much.)
I did the same paranormal research last year for Saving Sarah. Back in the day of “medium quackery” and seances, they often required a body search of the said medium for authenticity. Then later on they created that strange dress so the medium couldn’t slip fabric or whatever from out of a sleeve or bodice. But if the medium had a hidden opening at the front of her garment and no undergarments on she could just pull out the fabric from you know where. Think removing a tampon. Okay, maybe that’s too graphic for some, I told you I’m an old nurse and nothing much phases me. ; )
On July 2, 2009 at 2:52 pm Jenny said...
And Robena saves the day. Back to vagina. It’s funnier with vagina anyway. I’ll change it.
On July 2, 2009 at 1:14 pm Diane (TT) said...
SO looking forward to this book! Fun and, um, educational.
Punctuation is critical to meaning, tone and character – but it’s hard, sometimes, to get it right.
I’m a Pampered Chef consultant, and all of the announcements from HQ look like they, too, went to CC’s exclamation point sale -or perhaps found a wholesale bargain. Excellent products, good system, but too many exclamations just make me tired.
On July 2, 2009 at 1:30 pm Naked under my clothes said...
Thank you for this thoughtful post. It’s the best discussion of the issues brought up in the two earlier posts about copyediting.
I see red when people say to me, “Hey, how do you get those editing jobs you do? I got good grades in English in high school. I bet I could do editing.”
Editing is not a matter of being good at catching typos in menus. Editing is about reading and learning, playing and discovering. Editing requires generosity and good judgment. And there’s no “there” there, either. You don’t get editing “status” and get to quit doing the hard work. Language changes, except in the ways it doesn’t. Editors have to grow throughout their careers.
Editing, in fact, is a lot like writing in that it requires a commitment to language and meaning. Both also require a willingness to focus on the big picture: ensuring that the book best expresses the writer’s vision.
Most of all, editing, like writing, isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes guts to do both.
Getting off my soapbox now. But thanks for the discussion.
On July 2, 2009 at 2:53 pm MJ said...
Hear, hear!
On July 2, 2009 at 2:53 pm Jenny said...
Very good points. I’ve said it before and I’ll said many times again after this, a good copy editor is worth her weight in royalty checks.
On July 2, 2009 at 2:01 pm inkgrrl said...
Excellent summary, of course, and thank you for the reminder about the musicality of punctuation. Very useful way to frame it.
On July 2, 2009 at 2:21 pm Mary Stella said...
A few observations after reading this post.
I don’t like semi-colons in fiction. Pet peeve but they seem pretentious in novels. Unless someone’s had surgery in which case I guess they could have a semi-colon.
I edit the newsletter that we send to members. Quite a few of my co-workers are addicted to exclamation points. I’ve seen five exclamation points used in a six sentence paragraph. I wonder if the writers ever read the newsletter once it’s printed and notice that I changed 99% of the exclamation points to periods.
I love that this post included a thoughtful and very funny discussion over whether it is more correct to use vulva or vagina. It’s conversations like these that get my friends and me funny looks from other customers in diners.
On July 2, 2009 at 2:52 pm MJ said...
Hey, did the poll writer use “too egregious” to bait copy editors?
On July 2, 2009 at 2:58 pm Jenny said...
That one, I checked. It meant “especially bad” so I figure “too especially bad” would float. Is that too much like “very unique”? That’s the one that makes my head explode.
On July 2, 2009 at 6:21 pm MJ said...
I tell my students “unique” is like “pregnant”: You is, or you ain’t. No “kinda, sorta, very” about it.
If you go with Merriam Webster’s definition of egregious (conspicuous, esp. conspicuously bad), you don’t need the qualifier. In fact, here’s my favorite Strunk & White advice: “Avoid the use of qualifiers. Rather, very, little, pretty–these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words.”
On July 2, 2009 at 3:52 pm AgTigress said...
Of course you are right about the sound in one sense. After all, that’s what punctuation was originally introduced for — to assist those reading aloud. However, when you say, “The thing about writing is that it’s all about sound. Even when a reader is reading silently, she’s hearing the words in her head”, I have to tell you that this is not necessarily true. There are readers like me, who do not hear the words: we SEE THE PICTURES. Words have visual associations which kick in immediately: word, picture, meaning. There’s a picture-strip going on in my mind. Sound is, at best, intermittent, and often not verbal (sound-effects rather than script).
One other thing, which I have mentioned here quite recently, is that however perfect your punctuation, and your spelling, idioms and vocabulary, may be in American, some of them will be incorrect when read by a British punctuation-stickler. So universal approval is unattainable, just as in real life.
On July 2, 2009 at 5:44 pm Susan D said...
I love it. Jenny has combined Grammar 101 with a tasty excerpt from The Book I Want to Read Next.
And yeah, I’ve read about that lady hiding the cheesecloth up her hoohah. Fascinating what they could get away with.
On July 2, 2009 at 6:33 pm Sheena said...
Dammit, I was going to avoid Always Kiss Me Goodnight, as ghost stories give me nightmares and I knew that Jenny’s would be create such a real world that I wouldn’t be able to shake the effect off. Now, I’m hooked and I’m going to have to read it after all…in broad daylight…
On July 2, 2009 at 8:19 pm GatorPerson said...
Insight! I side with AgTigress about seeing pictures rather than hearing words. In addition, I was taught never to subvocalize; it slows down the reading process. I can speed read with the best of them and must force myself to slow down sometimes.
Now you say I should be subvocalizing when I read novels so that I catch the rhythm of the conversations. Sigh!
On July 3, 2009 at 1:08 am Jenny said...
No, no, there are no shoulds when it comes to reading. You read any way you like. The whole sound thing is my reader bias: I hear sound instead of seeing pictures. Which is pretty sad when you consider I used to be an art teacher.
Sigh. Another post blown due to my assumption that the whole world thinks (reads) like I do. Your continuing insistence on your independence is screwing up my blog, people.
On July 4, 2009 at 2:22 pm Sure thing said...
Like AgTigress said, “So universal approval is unattainable, just as in real life.
”
On July 3, 2009 at 7:01 am Patricia said...
Best explanation EVER!
I try to tell people, I write as I speak, so if I pause, then there will be an appropriate punctuation there. I know my English teachers cringe, but what is more important, the voice in your head OR the style manual?
Next time — I’m totally pointing someone to this explanation.
On July 3, 2009 at 11:37 am Jackie said...
Funny, more than one of my english teachers suggested the old “Read it out loud, and if you would pause there, add the appropriate punctuation.” Then my favorite teacher would always say, “STOP YELLING!!”. By which she meant lay off the exclamation points.
Seriously, the language was changing, is changing, and will never stop changing as long as it’s in use. Which means that there will always be new rules to break.
On July 3, 2009 at 10:51 am Kira said...
I can’t answer the poll – what does “incorrect” mean? Punctuation is a part of the communication between writer and reader. “Incorrect”, to me, is when I, as a reader, fail to parse a sentence, or fail to parse it as the writer intended.
Like “needs washed”.
(Sorry, Jenny, it just ain’t in my dialect)
BTW, GatorPerson, there’s a difference between “sub-vocalizing” and “hearing the voice”. When one sub-vocalizes, the voice they hear is their own, and it only goes at the speed that one could read aloud at. This is why it’s discouraged. “Hearing the voice” is more like telepathy.
On July 3, 2009 at 1:19 pm colognegrrl said...
Oh my, I’m frustrated. I’ve been speaking and writing English all my life as a second language, even got a degree in it, but nobody ever taught me that there’s a difference between an n-dash and an m-dash. Anybody volunteering to explain?
And I can’t answer the poll because although bad grammar, typos, and other mistakes make me scream, I can very well accept exceptions if they make sense within the story. Such as incomplete sentences.
On July 6, 2009 at 12:25 am Adie said...
an en-dash is used between two equal parts such as years mesurements or terms (can’t think of the right words exactly) and em-dash is used to separate main info or to break off speech (see Jenny’s exaples above) an en-dash is half the length of an em ans doesn’t have any spaces around it (spaces around an em-dash vary as to which country you’re in)
1994-2001 (en-dash)
re-instate (hyphen)
ugh… i think i just confused myself more. hope someone understands it
On July 3, 2009 at 1:54 pm misspiggy don'twannabe said...
Ken Burns has a new documentary series about America. I watched the episode about Mark Twain last night. They mentioned that Huckeberry Finn was banned in many libraries but not for the reason you’d think.
There were complaints that it wasn’t written using proper English.
Things have changed a lot since Twain’s day – but I still love that book.
On July 3, 2009 at 2:36 pm Jenny said...
“All right then, I’ll go to hell.” My all-time fave line from American Lit.
(http://www.twainquotes.com/Jim.html)
Here you go, CG:
“The en dash, or n dash, n-rule, etc., (–) is roughly the width of the letter n. It is shorter than an em dash. The en dash is used in ranges, such as 6–10 years, read as “six to ten years”.
On July 3, 2009 at 3:31 pm Becke Davis said...
With me it’s all instinct, although I think reading a couple hundred books a year my whole life has helped hone those instincts. Like Jenny, I picture punctuation as pauses or breaths. I tend to use a lot of commas and semi-colons and way too many em-dashes because that’s how I speak. When I’m writing, though, I have to stop myself from using too many semi-colons because those look better in non-fiction than in fiction. Jenny’s “I win, you lose” comment is a great example. My fingers are always hovering over the semi-colon key, but I have to ignore the bent pages of my Strunk and White and trust those instincts. It’s especially hard when my critique partners, with their English degrees, point out my errors. Their training trumps mine, but I’m sticking with instinct — the words, and their phrasing, have to sound right in my head.
On July 3, 2009 at 3:38 pm GatorPerson said...
It’s been a gazillion years since I was taught to speed read. I thought the word was sub-vocalize. Maybe it was then. Maybe not. The idea is not to vocalize mentally at all. I’m not listening to myself, my voice, another voice, or anything else.
On July 3, 2009 at 4:03 pm colognegrrl said...
Thanks for the explanation. But how do you distinguish between both dashes? Do you have them both on your keyboard (I don’t think so) or does Word do that automatically? Because I realize that in German, you use a blank space (is that the right word?) before and after the equivalent of the m-dash (we call it a ‘thought dash’, how do you like that?), so the program does it. But in American texts, I often see the dash right between the words.
On July 3, 2009 at 4:51 pm AgTigress said...
When typing in Word, set to British English, Colognegrrl, if you type space, hyphen, space between words, the programme will auto-correct that to an em rule (unless you tell it not to). I think that on an American setting, one needs to type two hyphens for that to happen.
For an n rule, one needs to insert it using the normal ’symbol’ method, which some of us have to use frequently for diacriticals in languages other than English.
The three dashes (hyphens, ens and ems), are easily visually distinguishable. I’m not sure if I can show them here, but I’ll try: – – — . Probably there is a quick keyboard code, Alt + some number, for the ens and ems, too.
On July 3, 2009 at 5:26 pm colognegrrl said...
Wow. Thanks. I’m amazed.
On July 3, 2009 at 9:04 pm Jenny said...
You’ve got it, Ag: in Word, if you type two hyphens, the program automatically changes it to an em-dash; one hyphen is a en-dash. Which I never use since people don’t think in en-dashes. I think.
On July 4, 2009 at 7:08 am Micki said...
Well, I have to say that I agree with Jenny’s views on punctuation, but it’s really essential that we all get on the same page (so to speak) and learn somewhere what these punctuation marks mean. If someone is out there thinking an em-dash means a trailing off, and an ellipses is an interruption, there’s a major disconnect.
I feel I learned this through lots of reading; I don’t think anyone taught me this in school . . . or is it in the curriculum?
(-: In other notes, did you read Mary Roach’s Spook? That’s where I recently came across the 101rst use for my genitals (-:. It was hilarious reading about her investigating a decades-old piece of “ectoplasm” in a library amidst other study-bunnies. And we can all guess where that “ectoplasm” had been . . . .
Looking back at my post, though, I also have to mention that I probably have a very progressive idea of punctuation. I think the smiley should be standardized, and that reading programs for the blind should be programmed to recognize it. Of course, that means that I’d probably have to learn to do my smileys the right way around, which would be a huge pain in the butt . . . .
On July 6, 2009 at 2:59 am CrankyOtter said...
While incorrect punctuation throws me out of a story, it only does so if it’s incorrect for the scene. If your punctuation is incorrect because it contradicts the story you’re telling, it bothers me. If your character is so. angry. she. could. scream. I don’t mind the extra full stops because it’s a different kind of angry than the same phrase without.
That said, I couldn’t get more than 100 pages into Dan Brown because his love of sentence fragments drove me to distraction. And Julie Ann Long, an author I normally like quite a lot used roughly 1200 semicolons in her recent book. Not all of them were used to show a relationship between independent clauses. Also drove me to distraction.
I’m with the “know why you’re breaking the rule” crowd. You can do it if you don’t overdo it, and have good reason. I probably won’t even notice the punctuation as I’m sounding out the phrases in my head, if they all fit.
On July 7, 2009 at 9:35 pm Marta said...
I’m all caught up in the see it or hear it question. Like Jenny, I would have said readers ‘hear’ the written word, an effortless mental vocalization, although those pesky scientists claim everyone does physically subvocalize.
Then AgTigress said she saw pictures rather than hearing the words, and I started wondering. After re-reading the blog and the comments a couple of times, I realized I have a stronger sense of ‘hearing’ dialog. Comments, and the blog itself, seem to come across that way as well, which is understandable as we’re basically talking to each other.
Non dialog writing seems more of thought than ’sound’, more a flow of images. When I looked at my writing process, the same thought-driven imagery, almost like a video stream, was obvious, as was the more aural nature of the dialog.
I wonder if the real difference in the ‘hear’ and ’see’ of reading lies in what we choose to call it.
On July 8, 2009 at 4:31 am Ernest Bywater said...
I agree with you that a written book must have the correct mental sound, so you need to adjust the grammar and punctuation rules to get it right. I also think what you’re writing must look right as well. The books are justified and the individual letter spacing adjusts to suit the whole line, except for the last part line. I find I frequently do small changes in wording or word choices to stop a line looking bad because the justification stretches the gaps out too big.
As to punctuation itself, I often resort to a small dash to replace the use of a comma or brackets to make the text look better. In normal usage when you expand on something you either put it between two commas or in brackets, but that can be a problem when it’s part of a list with commas in it, so I use a dash. I sometime replace a comma in a multi-level list with a semicolon too.
In this example I’ve lists within a list and use the dash to show that while the semicolon splits the upper level list items:
There’s twenty-one of us, Dad and his two slaves – Dee and Mai; my three girlfriends – Lia, Kath, and Debbie; my eleven slaves – Sharon, Liz, Belle, Diane, Dawn, Denise, Makha, Mayu, Kira, Nadia, and El; our three extra guests – Jon, Amy, and Fred; and me.
If I’d done this according to the style manual I’d either need a lot more words or it would be so confusing it would send the poor reader mad trying to work it out. Numerous times I’ve had people write and say it isn’t correct according to the style manual but they like it as it clarifies the situation more than how it would according to the style manual.
What it all boils down to is you, as the author do what you feel is best for your story and what you think the reader will understand best. Who knows, you may be the cause of a change in the style manual as English is a living language and changes with usage.
On July 10, 2009 at 7:44 pm AlienEeeter said...
I get into so much trouble at school because I write like a fiction writer and not an english major (which I am one). I had one professor who refused to give me anything higher than a C+, so I’ve started simply recycling the profs that I’ve already found to care less about my punctuation and word choice and more about my content.
On July 12, 2009 at 3:43 am PG said...
I try to hew to Florence King’s advice on writing despite my disagreement with her on politics:
‘”Adding “under God” in the Pledge cluttered up the unequivocal spartan simplicity of the original language and made it go “off,” so that it just doesn’t flow right anymore. There’s a rhythm to good prose, which is why I oppose the use of too much punctuation and textual enhancements. If you write a sentence with the proper attention to rhythm, you don’t need to add emphasis. You can pick the reader up and carry him along with you — dance with him, as it were — so that he catches your rhythm and supplies the italics and commas in his own mind. No argument by me would be complete without an off-the-wall point that has nothing to do with anything, so here it is: If you danced to the Pledge, “under God” would make you miss a step.’
On July 12, 2009 at 8:08 am Jenny said...
I love that quotation. I so agree that the “under God” is a copy editing mistake by somebody who knew nothing about rhythm and prose. The same with italics; the rhythm of the sentence should tell you where the emphasis goes.
On July 22, 2009 at 1:15 pm Carol Strickland said...
I recently had my first book published. The publisher’s guidelines were to keep semi-colons to a minimum, with the excuse that today’s readers didn’t understand ‘em and so they interfered with the reading experience. My editor just ordered: no semi-colons at all! And no colons either, for that matter! Well, gee. Noah Lukeman listed semi-colons as one of the “triumvirate” of English punctuation in his book “A Dash of Style.” (Which should be in italics, but I don’t know how to do that here.) So I tried to argue with the editor about the rhythm of my prose and how important it was but it was my first book and you don’t really argue with your editor on your first book so I gave in. Sigh. (I kept an unedited copy on my HD for when I become a Big Name Writer and someone wants to reprint the novel as it should have been.)
On July 27, 2009 at 9:25 pm Kerry Baker said...
Have you read “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynne Truss? A book on grammar written with humor. I moved around a lot as we were in the military; state to state, country to country, not to mention catholic to public school. Consequently I am at a total loss in regards to correct punctuation. The fact I managed to get “A”s and “B”s in English was because as a voracious reader I could feel if my words flowed correctly. As for the idea of diagramming a sentence, whoever came up with that idea should be put to the rack. My junior year in H.S. the first half of the year was devoted to writing essays, and except for spelling (under stress I can’t even spell my own name) I did fine. The second half was grammar and I didn’t have a clue. She brought in a tutor who rapidly came to the conclusion he would have to start from scratch as I was hopeless. Needless to say we went back to my writing by feel.
Have you read any of Angela Thirkell? She was a English writer who wrote from the early 30’s to mid 50’s. Her style is distinctive and modern proof readers would probably have a nervous breakdown. After two husbands she said ‘It’s very peaceful with no husbands’. She did stories of people, manners and everyday life in the country. The only biography on her shows a contempt for her writing(Wikipedia) but I totally relax and enjoy her satiric wit. You end up caring for her characters and if it isn’t great literature so what, it’s a great way it visit a distant way of life.
On October 14, 2009 at 9:21 am Jana said...
I love this post and keep coming back to it, which is why I’m commenting three months later.
A question: you talk about using punctuation and italics to give rhythm to your words, and very helpfully too, but I’m wondering about using paragraph breaks to do the same. Your post uses them to great effect–I’m thinking of the “Like this” paragraphs–but you don’t specifically mention them as a device. I’d love hearing your take on that, too.
On October 14, 2009 at 9:39 am Jenny said...
You have to be careful about getting cute with paragraphing because paragraphs have their own meaning, they’re a unit of thought, and readers expect a shift after a paragraph break. That is, they expect you to move to the next point, or shift to an example for the point just stated, or to begin a transition to the next topic in the paper. So if you’re paragraphing for emphasis and you do it a lot . . .
. . . like this . . .
. . . you have to be careful not to become breathless and annoying. That paragraph-for-emphasis thing can become too heavy-handed, too, if the thought you’re separating out really doesn’t deserve the emphasis. A lot of the time, that kind of showboating can become really pretentious. So I tend to be a paragraph purist whenever possible. The big thing to remember is to never let your fancy style get in the way of clarity for the reader.
Even though those single line paragraphs for emphasis are fun.
On November 10, 2009 at 11:30 am Paul said...
Perhaps what I’m about to say is a whole new subject, but it’s related to the main topic. I’m referring to colons and capitalization. I never capitalize the first word after a colon, (unless grammar demands it, as in the case of a proper noun), and I notice that Jenny adheres to this practice also.
Over the past decade or so, capitalizing the first word after a colon has become increasingly common, and I wish people would stop doing it. I know it isn’t incorrect, but it always hits my ear with a thud and interrupts the flow of my reading. As far as I’m concerned, if you feel the need to capitalize after a colon, you’ve already completed the sentence, so ditch the colon and use a full stop instead, Does anybody else agree with me?