Comments on: Your Semi-Colon Ain’t Like Mine. Maybe.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:30:40 +0000

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?

By: Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:39:28 +0000

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.

By: Jana

Jana — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:21:27 +0000

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.

By: Kerry Baker

Kerry Baker — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:25:08 +0000

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.

By: Carol Strickland

Carol Strickland — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:15:43 +0000

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.)

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:08:42 +0000

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.

By: PG

PG — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:43:52 +0000

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.’

By: AlienEeeter

AlienEeeter — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:44:10 +0000

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.

By: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:31:39 +0000

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.

By: Marta

Marta — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:35:15 +0000

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.

By: CrankyOtter

CrankyOtter — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:59:57 +0000

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.

By: Adie

Adie — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:25:31 +0000

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

By: Sure thing

Sure thing — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:22:52 +0000

Like AgTigress said, “So universal approval is unattainable, just as in real life. ”

By: Micki

Micki — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:08:43 +0000

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 . . . .

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:04:30 +0000

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.

By: colognegrrl

colognegrrl — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:26:24 +0000

Wow. Thanks. I’m amazed.

By: AgTigress

AgTigress — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:51:22 +0000

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.

By: colognegrrl

colognegrrl — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:03:54 +0000

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.

By: GatorPerson

GatorPerson — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:38:03 +0000

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.

By: Becke Davis

Becke Davis — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:31:24 +0000

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.