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The melancholy decline of the semicolon

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Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#161

Post by paulcole »

mdp2021 wrote: post #71
paulcole wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One should decide if one is using it because it’s the best way to communicate with one’s audience or if one is proud that one knows how to use a semicolon properly.

If your audience benefits from expressions that avoid semicolon, the point is in the expression, not in its nuts and bolts: you use an apt structure, which should anyway in general follow sensible rules. And you should not pollute the minds of your audience, so surely you want to avoid "reinforcing the use of something wrong by adopting it": you may, with ability, simplify a structure, but still crafting something ev…

I’m not sure if you’re agreeing with me or not?

I’ll double down on my original point. If, in 2021, you’re 100% sure you absolutely positively need to be using a semicolon in your writing, you need to reevaluate your position.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#162

Post by layer8 »

pixl97 wrote: post #147
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

Heh, I think my daughters generation will just replace them with emojis.

;)

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#163

Post by layer8 »

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…

> Over time, I recognized that when I found myself reaching for the technique

I had a similar experience with parentheses.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#164

Post by mdp2021 »

paulcole wrote: post #161
mdp2021 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your audience benefits from expressions that avoid semicolon, the point is in the expression, not in its nuts and bolts: you use an apt structure, which should anyway in general follow sensible rules. And you should not pollute the minds of your audience, so surely you want to avoid "reinforcing the use of something wrong by adopting it": you may, with ability, simplify a structure, but still crafting something ev…

I’m not sure if you’re agreeing with me or not? I’ll double down on my original point. If, in 2021, you’re 100% sure you absolutely positively need to be using a semicolon in your writing, you need to reevaluate your position.

Why should 2021 be different than any other year. I cannot see a reason to avoid using the semicolon. It is part of proper expression - it's useful, available and innocent.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#165

Post by contingencies »

amelius wrote: post #52
Decabytes wrote: post #39

I find it amusing that programmers use semicolons more often then writers.

Programming is the new literacy.

In that case, it seems the literati are opting to curtail their own literacy; recent languages trend toward reducing them: Python, Ruby, Rust.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#166

Post by tsimionescu »

__s wrote: post #64
kreeben wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> at this very point. & sometimes Unless you're a famous writer, isn't that against the law? I thought you're supposed to start a sentence with a capital letter, or can anything follow a hard stop? E.g. is this kosher (?): Microsoft copied Java. .net, they called it. Final question; what if your name is kreeben with a lowercase 'k', is this kosher: Grammar is hard. kreeben does not understand it. ?

That's kosher Writing has no laws, only rules meant to be broken English is also a descriptivist language, rather than prescriptivist. ie English has no spec, unlike French (tho you then have French as it is spoken & French as it is specified) . As much as Oxford might want to reign it in, they are only cataloging what the collective spews Examples of miniscule starts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/of_Montreal where…

>(tho you then have French as it is spoken & French as it is specified)

You missed an excellent chance to say 'French as she is spoke'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_Spoke

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#167

Post by tacon »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #154
ghoomketu wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow never really knew this. I guess you need to have deep understanding of the language and maybe have English as your mother tongue to pick up on such things. No wonder text is so emotionless and people misread and get angry about what they think it means all the time. Yet, nobody misreads the tone of your voice or facial expressions. Like in India we have a very common expression "I'm writing to intimate you.." whi…

> "I'm writing to intimate you.." This is a documented Indian English usage: " https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intimate " (see the verb section). Indian English has retained some strong markers from the British colonial period. There's no clear guide for how prestige and emulation will affect usage, but "to intimate" in either verbal form is a literary archaism in North American English.

>"to intimate" in either verbal form is a literary archaism in North American English

While the second (intransitive) version from that wiktionary page is Indian, the first use is most certainly not an archaism in North American English. In fact, it was listed as a normal definition in the first dictionary that Google returned with a definition.[0] The pronunciation does shift with which definition we intend, which nicely keeps "intimate details" from sounding too much like "mating". :-)

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=intimate+definition

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#168

Post by b3morales »

helmholtz wrote: post #155

I wish using the word "Melancholic" was more of a thing, rather than the pedestrian and, in my firm belief, incorrect, "Melancholy" I was feeling Melancholic, not melancholy. I know Oxford disagrees and fuck them too. Melancholy already is a perfectly nice noun.

"Feel X" is perfectly valid for X either noun or adjective:

I feel sadness/I feel sad.

I feel joy/I feel joyful.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#169

Post by darkerside »

mannykannot wrote: post #75
darkerside wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was going to comment this. Are there any great examples in all of literature where a period would not have been a good replacement fora semicolon? As a side note, I am only a little offended by the idea that fiction writers should use semicolons to make their writing more literate or fancy. But I think simple writing is always better, even when you are trying to convey beauty. I believe great flowery literature is gr…

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.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#170

Post by ghaff »

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…

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.
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