Punctuation A case for the justifiable semicolon

I'm confused by this comma splice debate. Of course there's a connection. The very thing that makes a comma splice incorrect (two discrete sentences) is the exact time you'd use a semi colon.

Yes, a semi colon requires some kind of connection between the sentences (or main clauses), but if you've opted for a comma in the first place, there must be one. If there weren't, you'd just use a normal full stop, surely?

 

Well, I've read were members have supported the idea of purposefully using a comma splice because a semicolon feels like too solid of a break for them. Typically these words of support for the purposeful comma splice are made in conversations concerning what I call "manual pacing" of the text, which is forcibly controlling the pace at which things get read. That's a very different topic, obviously, and I am not a proponent of "manual pacing". Just mentioning that there is this other thought process that sometimes comes into play, which may be linking these two conversations.

I could also just be talking out of my ass. That's always an option.

 

It wasn't really a debate so much as a thought I hadn't specifically had before. There wasn't some profound meaning, just an exploration of a thought...

 

Rudimentary would have been if I'd written out a guide to using semicolons correctly, like the one I linked to. Or if I'd been asking a basic question about how to use them correctly.

Instead, I wrote a lengthy post discussing how semicolons can be used to good effect, and what the difference is between understanding that and just knowing when you're allowed to put them in.

You didn't notice the difference?

Obviously I opened the discussion in the word mechanics forum, but questions of word mechanics, including punctuation, can apply to all levels of writing, not just the rudiments. I thought I made that pretty clear.

(The rule about conjunctions was a bit rudimentary, but it's a misconception I can't just let slide. That's why I gave some examples of how more respected writing that could even be called bit grandiose used multiple sentences starting with conjunctions to strong rhetorical effect, where there was no clear improvement to make by "correcting" them. That way I could at least post something more interesting and related to higher-level writing than just a quibble about rules from grammar books.)

 

Clearly, one can agree the semi-colon is an abomination against nature; both turgid and unnecessary. Still, I can see a certain allure. It's like the cheating diet version of a full stop; modesty dictates I should stop chewing this sentence but I'm just not ready for that yet.

 

It's a turgid abomination there because you just used it wrong, my man. "Both turgid and unnecessary" is a fragment, and when the two halves of a semicolon aren't grammatically independent of each other, it's obvious that a comma should have gone there, and it just puts a weird halt in the sentence.

In the second case, it's gratuitous because there's not a very strong interrelation between the two clauses. It sounds like you've moved on to a separate, self-reflective thought.

 

In the first case, you're quite correct; carelessness on my part.

In the second, obscene gratuitousness was somewhat the point. That said, the two are separate only in the laziness of the metaphor, not the spirit. The reason you're not ready to stop chewing the sentence is because you're cheating your diet.

 

I use dashes a lot as well. It can become a (bad) habit. Mind you, they replaced ellipses in my tool box. When I first started out using a wordprocessor (back in 1994) I didn't know how to access the long dash on the keyboard. So I just started using ellipses instead. OMG. Did that ever provoke a reaction! My first beta reader was all over me like a rash regarding that. He personally dislikes ellipses at the best of times. So I tamed the Ellipsis Monster. But then I discovered how to do a 'dash.' Yikes.

Another bad habit I have, and fight constantly, is the tendency to use parentheses, or as the British call them, 'brackets.' I can create the most convoluted sentences in the universe. I nearly always need to go back and edit out my bad habits. Doesn't keep me from using these tangent markers in the first place, though. I seem to automatically go off on tangents when I write. Brain fart.

 

I think the reason for a semicolon as opposed to a full stop is that, with a semicolon, the reader KNOWS that specific thought isn't finished. When they see a semicolon, they expect something else to finish the thought.

If you split a thought into two complete sentences, the fact that the two might be thematically related isn't obvious when you finish reading the first sentence. The next sentence could be anything, or the start of a new thought altogether. It's only after you finish reading the second sentence that you make the connection. (Oh, that explains it sort of thing.)

Semicolons create expectation. Full stops (periods) don't. That's one simple way to regard the issue. Neither is incorrect, but it's a good idea to consider the effect.

 

I might challenge you for that title (in the brackets division, that is)...

 

Hey, brackets AND an ellipsis! You sure you couldn't have worked a couple of dashes in there as well?

How about "I might—if you were interested—challenge you for that title (in the brackets division, that is....)"

I won I won I won. I'm GOOD.

 

"I might—if you were interested—challenge you for that title (in the brackets [or parentheses, as we Americans say] division, that is....)"

 

My celebrations were premature; I might—if you were interested—challenge you for that title (in the brackets [or parentheses, as we Americans say] division, that is....)

 

Please send me a couple (in a brown paper bag(tied with string(no—a ribbon(in a bow(red))))). I'm a convolution fetishist—seriously—I think I mop up all the regard for them that most derisively eschew.

I've just started reading Despair by that guy I don't say I read 'cause it sounds pretentious (he wrote Lolita); I can't put it down for the convoluted digressions he's planted in the first few pages. Delicious.

The Holy Grail for me would be a complex seriously long sentence masquerading as convoluted and ostensibly begging for dismissal. But on inspection, for this rare die-hard, the complexity would be irreducible.

Back to Despair.

 

Ah. You can beta-read my next novel, then!

 

I'll hold you to that.

 

Yeah, that is always a tough call. I'm working on reigning in the dashes, but I think the more important thing is overall sentence construction around the dash - like only having commas on one side of it.

(see what I did there...)

And ellipses are a whole new problem. I don't use them to break up sentences, but my characters have a tendency to interrupt each other in dialogue and/or trail off into thought mid-sentence. Readers don't like that too much. The other thing I tend to use ellipses for are when one character is listening to another character having a phone conversation....

"Of course I know people in the area, Hector....That's why I know you!...Well **** you very much! *hangs up*

Which can be hard to read, so that's been a battle.

Oh well, punctuation is fun.

 

I think part of the problem with that elliptical phone dialogue is that what the text is doing at that point is just not very interesting, and no punctuation choice can hide that. The flow of action and description grinds to a halt, for the sake of one half of an exchange. That's automatically going to be a bit flat, and when all we get is those lines, for several sentences in a row, it suggests that nothing else at all is happening. At that moment, only one thing is happening, and it's only half there. So the format is inescapably dull, and makes the words a bit dull, however interesting they ought to be.

I'd avoid these situations by finding ways to describe the conversation and/or other things that're going on at the same time, even describing the physical environment in a meaningful way, rather than just relaying bits of dialogue. If you break up the dialogue like that, there's no need for an ellipsis.

I think that's why there're few situations, other than technical omissions, where you really want to have an ellipsis. The effect is generally going to be a sense of something being missing, not in an intriguing way, just in a flat, incomplete way.