Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related The death of semicolons?

If you have even a passing interest in linguistics or sentence construction, this article might interest you.

Slate Magazine - Has modern life killed the semicolon?

I bemoan IM speak and what it has done to academic paper writing. I've corrected papers (*college* freshmen) where kids have actually written 'lol.'

It baffles the mind.

But I like the semicolon more and more each day. Even if "allows woozy clauses to lean on each other like drunks." Or perhaps because of it.

alcyone

Alcyone - same here. I don't think I've gotten lol in a paper, but I have gotten emails like:

ru goin 2b on campus 2m? cul8r.

even after I told them that they're all college students, I expect all correspondence to be in 'real English', not NetSpeak.

I have gotten discussion board postings the same way after I told them not to.

Ah well. Not my job anymore - not in 5 weeks.
Carol

I got an email at work the other day from a coworker that used "ur" instead of "your". At work.

*bemoans what the English language is turning in to*

I've yelled at coworkers for doing that in instant messages to me. They send "ur" and I yell back, "It's two extra letters, TYPE THEM!"

One of my university profs this year opened a Facebook group for the class, to keep us posted online. Most people on Facebook sign up with their real names (the whole point of FB)... and half of them still used netspeak when posting!

I thought it was a bit sad, personally.

As someone who was once known - in this fandom, at any rate - for quite possibly over-using the semi-colon, I'm naturally fascinated by this topic. Though I'll admit that what interests me most about the linked article is that, apart from the quoted excerpts, I didn't notice the author using a single semi-colon himself!

Semi-colons may be fading from common usage, but I mourn an even more endangered species: the hyphen. Its demise is much more marked in North America than in Britain and Ireland. Do we not acknowledge compound nouns and adjectives any more? Creating new, longer words, a la the Germans, is one thing (semicolon, coordination), but what of the confusion caused by reverting to two separate words?

For example, does peanut free products mean products in which the peanuts are given away free of charge? Is this is a friends only journal an ungrammatical way of saying that it's my friend's sole journal? And does the red haired woman mean that the red woman is hairy?

All joking apart, I really do feel as if I'm a voice in the wilderness complaining about the loss of the cherished, and so valuable, hyphen. SOH! Save Our Hyphens!


Wendy

Wendy, I am hiring you as my agent, right after I talk Lara <coughworldsbestbetabatcough> into becoming a copy editor. Seriously, there are so many reporters here who seem to have skipped class in journalism school when they instructed them on how to use a hyphen. ANGRY COPY EDITOR RANT: USE A HYPEN, BLOWHARDS; YOUR LAZINESS IS MAKING OUR JOBS HARDER! (oh, and look, I used a semicolon correctly!)

I mean seriously, this entry in our online AP Stylebook stems from something that ran in the paper:

AVOID AMBIGUITY: Use a hyphen whenever ambiguity would result if it were omitted: The president will speak to small-business men.

That being said ... semicolons are not exactly sexy. Is everyone aware it's National Smut Month? Come on over for some sensual commas and cold-shower inducing hyphens.
Uh yeah, wouldn't you be less than thrilled if you were being called a small businessman?

Oooooooooh!That's a fight on my block!

alcyone (who doesn't mind if a few hyphens become extinct as long as those tantalizing semicolons remain)

OMG, hyphens! I can't tell you how many times I've had to add them in while editing (BR or GE) - it's the one mistake I noticed that people did the most often.

As a side note: my mind still boggles sometimes when I consider people would rely on me - a French girl - to correct their texts. You'd think it would be the other way around... And, gosh darn it, how can some folks still not know how to use spellcheck - we're in 2008, people...

/me goes to put on pink boxing gloves

Bring it on!

Or should I say, bring it on; it's all about the comma, baby!

Editor Jaxx wrote:



What? Something about commas?

dazzled,


alcyone
(who clearly needs to get back to work, but this heat!)

That's a very rabble-rousing remark; don't you feel even half-way ashamed of yourself?


Wendy

Well, you got the semicolon right, but halfway is one word ...

... wait, why am I picking on Wendy?

<runs off>

Not in UK English it's not!


Wendy

Oh, I beg to differ! It's so double the fun compared to your single-marked hyphens and commas.

JD
who would love to start fining people for using NetSpeak words.

Until you see me insert a comma, you ain't seen nothing yet.

*dies laughing*
That's all I can do.
JD

*wipes tear* Oh JD, a woman after my own heart; I knew I wasn't alone!

alcyone

(Because sometimes woozy clauses just need each other)

Hey; it's better, than abusing. punctu-ation! Right?



(Okay, that last word put Rocky Horror in my head. "Punctu-" "Say it!" "-ation")