My face turned red. I gurgled up spittle to make a show of sputtering; only mist would make the show sufficiently impressive.
Note the semicolon in the paragraph above; it’s important today. So was that second one, just there.
Setting me off was a headline at nytimes.com texted by an especially wicked friend: “The Case for Semicolons.”
I’ve long thought semicolons a sign of flabby or indirect writing, or of indecision between brain and typing fingers. I mostly avoid them.
I learned from the essay, by Lauren Oyler, that I’m backed by a tradition of semicolon hate. She quotes Kurt Vonnegut dissing the punctuation. And she cites a book that offers more examples, including this beauty from Donald Barthelme (yes, I looked it up): “Ugly as a tick on a dog’s belly.” I also learned semicolons are unpopular in social media.
Oyler argues that writing needs the semicolon’s winking indecision – half pause, half full stop, an intentional “have it both ways” tool for writers.
She’s right; I have abandoned hate; all hail the waffling semicolon.
On the other hand …
More on writing and punctuation
You, too, can be an apostrophe warrior
I LOVE semi-colons; there, I’ve said it.