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The melancholy decline of the semicolon

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Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#181

Post by elb2020 »

mac-chaffee wrote: post #128

I use them a lot to control the tone of what I write. Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone[1], I often need some other way to indicate a separation between two complete sentences. For example: "It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y." Using a period could be perceived as anger, but using a comma would make that sentence a comma splice. [1] https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q?t=3m3s

"It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y."

"It looks like you forgot to do X. That's needed to do Y."

I would actually prefer the second one here. It's neutral and to the point.

I guess the problem with the first one is that the reader might interpret the semicolon exactly in the way that you intended it, as an attempt on your behalf to "control the tone". Depending on the personal disposition of the receiver he or she may or may not like it.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#182

Post by reissbaker »

behnamoh wrote: post #137
mac-chaffee wrote: post #128

I use them a lot to control the tone of what I write. Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone[1], I often need some other way to indicate a separation between two complete sentences. For example: "It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y." Using a period could be perceived as anger, but using a comma would make that sentence a comma splice. [1] https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q?t=3m3s

I wish there were more symbols for other use cases, too. I honestly think the standardization of things in the 20th century actually prevented lots of innovations in language and alphabet. Nowadays, you can't even imagine adding or removing a letter to/from the alphabet. Heck, we can't even change the layout of the current alphabet on keyboards because QWERTY is just too much standardized. In fact, forget about alpha…

Emojis would like a word with you ;)

In all seriousness, I think standardizing letters and symbols has done a lot to promote basic literacy. And there are plenty of language innovations like slang, emojis, kaomoji, new words like email, the prevalence of alternate text treatments like bolds, italics, underlines, strikethroughs, etc etc.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#183

Post by smackeyacky »

I might have this wrong but there was a definite use case for the semi-colon: it follows a colon in a list; can be used as a more flowing version of a bullet point list; can do so without interrupting the readers chain of thought.

edit: grammarly says I'm wrong and that should be a colon followed by a comma separated list. I might just be old or confused.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#184

Post by wizzwizz4 »

dharmaturtle wrote: post #151
behnamoh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish there were more symbols for other use cases, too. I honestly think the standardization of things in the 20th century actually prevented lots of innovations in language and alphabet. Nowadays, you can't even imagine adding or removing a letter to/from the alphabet. Heck, we can't even change the layout of the current alphabet on keyboards because QWERTY is just too much standardized. In fact, forget about alpha…

I totally agree with you. I like using symbols to shape the way I think, and I find using AutoHotKey to to expand typed strings works well for my workflow. Stuff like "qbeta", "qright", "qdegree" and "q@" become β, →, °, and my email. Very useful when I was in university. These days, I use it to type stuff like (ﾟヮﾟ ) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and a black box symbol that HN won't let me type, but is eye catching for when you're scan…

You might find WinCompose useful. It gives you the compose key (⎄):

⎄oo → °

⎄⎄(12) → ⑫

⎄25 → ⅖

Of course, you can change the compose key rules.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#186

Post by dylan604 »

vernie wrote: post #176
tomcam wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former professional journalist and tech writer here. Disagree. At least since Hemingway brief sentences using periods instead of complicated sentences separated by semicolons has been considered not particularly angry. Short sentences also reduce cognitive load on the reader.

Younger generations interpret it differently.

Younger generation needs Grammarly too, so there's that. The lack of punctuation in messaging apps is part of where I point to blame.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#187

Post by ajkjk »

elb2020 wrote: post #181
mac-chaffee wrote: post #128

I use them a lot to control the tone of what I write. Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone[1], I often need some other way to indicate a separation between two complete sentences. For example: "It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y." Using a period could be perceived as anger, but using a comma would make that sentence a comma splice. [1] https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q?t=3m3s

"It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y." "It looks like you forgot to do X. That's needed to do Y." I would actually prefer the second one here. It's neutral and to the point. I guess the problem with the first one is that the reader might interpret the semicolon exactly in the way that you intended it, as an attempt on your behalf to "control the tone". Depending on the personal disposition of the…

Oh, weird, I find the second off-putting. It's a bit.. Patronizing? Like you're some superior giving orders.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#188

Post by wizzwizz4 »

ReleaseCandidat wrote: post #138
the__alchemist wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Rust, omitting a semicolon has a special meaning, ie a return from an expression. So, you can't just ditch it. I wouldn't mind Python's whitespace indents in Rust though!

> In Rust, omitting a semicolon has a special meaning, ie a return from an expression. So, you can't just ditch it. Of course you could, because a semicolon-less return doesn't work in the middle of a statement. You can't do bla; a bla bla; b instead of bla; return a; bla bla; b Yes, the code after the `return` isn't reachable and the Rust compiler doesn't like that ;)

But that would mean

  {123 456} + {789}
was 1245 instead of 124_245.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#189

Post by dgellow »

mac-chaffee wrote: post #128

I use them a lot to control the tone of what I write. Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone[1], I often need some other way to indicate a separation between two complete sentences. For example: "It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y." Using a period could be perceived as anger, but using a comma would make that sentence a comma splice. [1] https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q?t=3m3s

> Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone

I will forever refuse this idea. I use a period to end my sentences because that’s how a sentence ends, not to communicate a tone.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#190

Post by tpoacher »

dgellow wrote: post #189
mac-chaffee wrote: post #128

I use them a lot to control the tone of what I write. Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone[1], I often need some other way to indicate a separation between two complete sentences. For example: "It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y." Using a period could be perceived as anger, but using a comma would make that sentence a comma splice. [1] https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q?t=3m3s

> Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone I will forever refuse this idea. I use a period to end my sentences because that’s how a sentence ends, not to communicate a tone.

Fine. Do that then.
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