Re: CHAT: Dashes

In a message dated 6/10/01 7:26:29 AM, christophe.grandsire@FREE.FR writes:

<< I HATE semicolons!!!! I hate them so much that I have banned them from my
style.

You will never see any semicolon in my works. I have perfectly enough of the

full stop and the comma, thank you very much. I also dislike to read a text
full

of semi-colons. Usually, full stops would have been just fine, and semi-colons

artificially lengthen sentences to no end. In fact, I've never quite
understood

the role of the semi-colon. I've never seen any text where it couldn't be

replaced by a full stop or by a comma with advantage of a better
readability... >>

    Of course, if you read something by Virginia Woolf, you'll see
semi-colons prostituted all over the page.  But the way I use them is very
specific.  I use them to tie to simultaneous or related sentences together.
Take the two following examples: (1) "I went to the beach today; Megan was
out of town" and (2) "I went to the beach today.  Megan was out of town."  In
number two, those are two random sentences that seemingly have nothing to do
with each other.  They may as well have been written by Hemingway.  In number
one, however, the semi-colon implies that I went to the beach BECAUSE Megan
was out of town, without the clutter of a "because" in there.  It's giving
meaning to free-flowing thought.  That's why I love punctuation, and shall
always love my friend the semi-colon, be he used to tie similar thoughts
togethere, or to indicate Acchian queries.

-David

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