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The melancholy decline of the semicolon

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Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#201

Post by hellbannedguy »

tomcam wrote: post #174
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

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.

I'm all for shorter concise writing.

I'm all for a semicolon though. It's a reminder that something necessary is comming.

I would like to nix most commas though.

I just don't see the need for them, except in technical writing. My wish for technical/scientific writing would be using numbers, followed by short concise sentences.

For example,

1. Do this with the wrench.

2. You need turn the 10mm nut clock wize.

3. Blah, blah, etc.

4. And even if I wanted to omit the comma, my brain can't seem to do it.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#203

Post by emmelaich »

Tyr42 wrote: post #81
zuj wrote: post #77

Completely off topic but, after doing python for ages, recently started writing Rust and semicolon does seems useless. We are doing the indentation and new lines anyway, why not just make them as default language construct as python does. (autodidact developer here, feel free to ELI5 and enlighten me)

Well, have you ever run into the x = some_long_expression + another_long_expression problem? In Python you need to be careful to wrap that in () or use a \ before the newline to avoid it parsing as two lines, e.g. x = some_long_expression; + another_long_expression; In particular, if you have a builder expressions let x = someBuilder() .setVal(x) .build() You'd need to wrap the entire thing in () to avoid it getting…

At least Python will give you a diagnostic. Ruby is worse; even with parentheses ...

   salary = 100500
   newsalary = (salary * 0.02
       + salary)
newsalary will the same as salary. There are no diagnostics.

Yes, you can fix it by moving the + up a line but this should be a purely style thing, not semantics.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#204

Post by frosted-flakes »

ghaff wrote: post #170
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…

The one that gets me is that we have basically three variants of dash/hyphens. And double quotes have to do the duty of about four different use cases.

And the fact that there are two types of double quotation marks (“opening and closing”), but those are squashed into a third " symbol on the keyboard—blame the typewrite for that one.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#205

Post by tomcatfish »

throwaway2077 wrote: post #78
forgatmigej wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some would say that a focus on proper grammar, expansive incorporated linguistical repertoires, and western/anglo-centric style is not inclusive. And I would agree. In line with your example, I have noticed "costed" used instead of "cost" increasingly often.

english is not esperanto. it happens to be the native language for a significant part of the world population, and they have no obligation to accept its bastardization for the sake of inclusivity. in every non-western country with its own language, those "some" would get rightfully ridiculed.

> bastardization

What is this universal, pure English you've been speaking? I must have missed the tablets on which it was written?

Non jokingly: There is no "bastardization" of a natural language. It is spoken how it is spoken and insisting otherwise is missing the point of language (I suggest it is "communication"). There is no King of English to sit and dictate the rules except for the common languages spoken.

If you want to really grok the concept, take some time to figure out what a "language" actually is. I'll give you a hint: your first 5 definitions have obvious failings.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#206

Post by gnubison »

ineedasername wrote: post #134

I had to read a lot of Heidegger, who was interesting on a macro level but interminably boring on the micro level needed to see the macro. His readability was helped by the use of very visible double dashes-- sort of an extended version of the double-comma appositive structure in a sentence-- so the structure of his writing was easier to follow. I liked that much more visual que enough that I adopted it myself for a…

They’re called “em dashes”, and they look like this: —

You can find a Real, Genuine Em Dash™ at https://emda.sh, or insert one using ‘C-k - M’ in Vim or ‘Compose - - -’ on Linux — not sure about other platforms.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#207

Post by mannykannot »

darkerside wrote: post #169
mannykannot wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking for a "great example" of punctuation use - any punctuation - is to miss the point, which is to smooth the reader's understanding of the text in the way that inflection and cadence are used in speech. As another commenter pointed out, well-used punctuation should be invisible. Only in its absence can it be properly appreciated. Understanding language is not a strictly linear, one-word-after-another process, and…

I agree with most of what you said, but not that you shouldn't be able to find a good example. If the only good time for it is when it doesn't matter, that sounds like the worst and most pretentious parts of literature.

It is not clear to me how you could interpret my reply as being an admission that "the only good time for it is when it doesn't matter" - my claim is something quite different, that it makes a difference in a way that does not lead to great examples. Are there great examples, as you put it, of the use of the comma? If not, should we conclude that it doesn't matter and should be replaced with something else? A period, perhaps, as you say should replace the semicolon?

I will admit, however, that I doubt a misunderstanding of this magnitude could be fixed by punctuation.

Given the viewpoint expressed by the last sentence in my original reply, I have little doubt there are examples where replacing a semicolon with a period could alter the meaning of an expression, but I am just not motivated enough to go look for one.

If, as your final sentence suggests, you feel that semicolons are characteristic of "the worst and most pretentious parts of literature", then I have bad news about just how pretentious writing can get. Writing that badly misuses semicolons might be the work of a pretentious author, but it is mainly just bad writing.

Ultimately, however, I think the semicolon will disappear: if one's readership finds it strange and it interrupts their flow, then it is counter-productive. I do not, however, think this would mean it was a bad idea; its demise will be just a consequence of the ever-shifting norm of usage in language. Furthermore, the substitution of other punctuation for the semicolon, as noted in the article, suggests that it had a purpose that remains to be satisfied one way or another.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#208

Post by cryptonector »

emmelaich wrote: post #194
cryptonector wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point I was taught that in English (not my first language) short sentences are the norm. Now you tell me that short sentences convey a harsh tone. What is one to do?! I use semi-colons as a sort of conjunction, not unlike the example you gave, in part to give me a way to lengthen sentences that would otherwise seem much too short.

The trouble is you get advice in a context, and that context might not be known. The context for your advice is that writing long sentences is/was popular poor style. Especially for young and new readers of English.

My observation is that in Romance languages writers (and readers, presumably!) like to create long sentences with lots of sub-clauses. It's almost a game where you have to read the whole 50 word sentence before you can parse it fully, having to push onto a mental stack quite a lot of state that you can only pop at the very very end. So in Romance languages one often finds sentences as long as entire paragraphs are in English! That approach doesn't work well in English for a number of reasons. For example, gendered nouns/adjectives can help disambiguate various parts of a long sentence; conversely, lacking gendered nouns/adjectives makes mixing multiple subjects and/or objects in one sentence much harder to pull off without causing severe ambiguities.

Now, I can write that way in English -up to some limit to do with those ambiguities-, but when I do, I find it irritates certain readers.

A rewrite of the preceding sentence:

  I can write that way in English, up to some
  limit to do with those ambiguities.  When I
  do, I find it irritates certain readers.
which is the style I find is more commonly used in the U.S.

Usually I write sentences as they pop into my mind, then I edit them down into more numerous, shorter sentences.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#209

Post by EMM_386 »

vidarh wrote: post #178
EMM_386 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I turn off intellisense Unless you are doing this for performance reasons, this one I'll never understand. I'd much rather type "x.someP" and hit tab then type in "x.somePropertyThatHasARidiculousNameIAlwaysForget" after having to consult the documentation yet again to get the name.

If you have properties with ridiculous names, that's a bigger problem. Autocomplete in code seems to mostly be papering over design smells that should be fixed.

> If you have properties with ridiculous names, that's a bigger problem.

I have no control over third-party dependencies and how they name things.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#210

Post by elb2020 »

emmelaich wrote: post #197
ajkjk wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There's a lesson here; never try to infer too much tone from email messages. Or chat channels. Unless you really know the person well.

And the corollary; never try to insert too much tone into the same.
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