for (let i = 0— i The melancholy decline of the semicolon
21–30 of 260 posts
Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon
#22Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon
#23Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon
#24It can't be accidental that the article has multiple paragraphs where they use an em dash where a semicolon would've also been appropriate.
Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon
#25Twitter has rescued the semicolon for me as a way to save a character since an em-dash requires an extra space.
Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon
#26This article does not demonstrate understanding of the semicolon; it is used incorrectly in the first sentence, for crying out loud.
Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon
#27Sentence length has gone down a lot, it feels like. So really, the semicolon has not been replaced by the dash, but by the period.
When you need to write text for a wide audience, shorter sentences are usually preferable. Most business schools even teach briefness as an explicit target, as far as I know. That's quite different compared to the origins of writing, where the target were (usually) very literate people.
Briefness does not (and cannot) go against proper structuring - structure exists regardless of brevity. Comma, semicolon, period, new paragraph: the expressed thought has a structure and its sets of relative closeness are indicated through them.
Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon
#28Meh. Grammar, in general, is on a steep suckiness trend.
For example, when was the last time you saw someone on the web actually use the correct past tense of "lead (verb, transitive)"?
Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon
#29This article does not demonstrate understanding of the semicolon; it is used incorrectly in the first sentence, for crying out loud.
OMG, LOL... it's literally the scenario from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94ii6MVilw :(.
Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon
#30Twitter has rescued the semicolon for me as a way to save a character since an em-dash requires an extra space.
You shouldn't do that with an em-dash.