what punctuation drives you mad?

[cacian]

the semi colon. I don't get it .:brickwall
so I never use it.
I love the full stop though. :D

[Marbles]

Milan Kundera left his publisher for the sole reason that they tried to change his semi colons into full stops.

Semi colons indicate that the thought is not finished; there is more to come before a full stop can be applied.

It tells you that the break is necessary because the thought is related but not the same. You also can't use a comma because the two lines divided by a semi colon are too related to be separated by a comma.

It's a matter of how you string your words together and which punctuation fits best. Writers have different ways of going about it.

I am thrilled by semi colons but, like 'dashes' for stand alone thoughts, I use them parsimoniously. Too much of 'em, like too many parentheses, clutter the text.

I can't stand exclamation mark though. One or two in the space of fifty pages? Fine. But not more than that!

[cacian]

Milan Kundera left his publisher for the sole reason that they tried to change his semi colons into full stops.
how very interesting. and this is an incredible story.


I]Semi colons indicate that the thought is not finished; there is more to come before a full stop can be applied.[/i]

that something I did not know.
my question is why not finish the thought?
would it not be easier then to have to put the semi colon?


It tells you that the break is necessary because the thought is related but not the same. You also can't use a comma because the two lines divided by a semi colon are too related to be separated by a comma.
I am not sure I get this.
do you have an example in mind? please :)

It's a matter of how you string your words together and which punctuation fits best. Writers have different ways of going about it.
true but there is only one way of reading.

I am thrilled by semi colons but, like 'dashes' for stand alone thoughts,
I like a clean uncluttered text myself.


I use them parsimoniously. Too much of 'em, like too many parentheses, clutter the text.
I dislike the 'em profoundly. I am not a fan of 'em.


I can't stand exclamation mark though. One or two in the space of fifty pages? Fine. But not more than that!
I am the opposite. I loooooove exclamation marks I find them fascinating because they appear to make a noise without a noise if you see what I mean :D

[PeterL]

Missing commas infuriate me. I've had to reread sentences several times, because they didn't make sense without the commas.

Semicolons are great; I use them regularly. Just like that, sometimes, and sometimes I even use them in ordered lists.

[kev67]

The rules for semicolons are simpler than for the comma. Kurt Vonnegut was very disparaging about people who used them in writing. He thought they were showing off their education. George Orwell boasted about having written a book with only one semicolon. I noticed Ian McEwan used commas even where he should have used semicolons. I feel uncomfortable using them, but sometimes I do when I think I can get away with it.

I was never taught how to use the semicolon at school, and the rule I was taught for using the comma was wrong.

[Marbles]

my question is why not finish the thought?
would it not be easier then to have to put the semi colon?

Depends how you construct sentences and how complex and long the thought is. Semi colons enhance the beauty of writing and give you a half break to gather what you have already read before providing you with auxiliary or further information.


I am not sure I get this.
do you have an example in mind? please :)

It's hard to get it without good examples. Kundera and translators of Orhan Pamuk use them a lot. I'll have to look into the books to fetch some lines. Watch this space.


I am the opposite. I loooooove exclamation marks I find them fascinating because they appear to make a noise without a noise if you see what I mean :D

But that's what they are for: to show a character make noise! To exclaim!

Now, do I need the exclamation mark in the above sentence? Absolutely not.

Like parentheses, I see exclamation marks as crutches for lines. Do it more than necessary and it becomes a cheap attempt to capture the reader's attention. One should embed emotions of exclamation into the text itself, in writing; readers shouldn't ideally need exclamation marks to capture a character's mood.

[108 fountains]

In technical writing, parentheses are sometimes necessary, but in fiction parentheses tend to say to the reader "the enclosed is not important." I generally abide by the idea that if something is so unimportant that I feel it needs to be placed in parentheses, then I probably don't need it in the text at all.

[cacian]

Missing commas infuriate me. I've had to reread sentences several times, because they didn't make sense without the commas.

Semicolons are great; I use them regularly. Just like that, sometimes, and sometimes I even use them in ordered lists.

what is
ordered list?

[PeterL]

what is
ordered list?

I was referring to a list in which there are items with more than one words names and commas in those names, so ythere would have to be a hierarchy of separators with semi-colons separating the items and commas within the item terms. I probab;ly shouldn't have have used the word "ordered".

[kev67]

I saw a good use of a semicolon today:

The impasse between analytic and continental philosophy, which began when Frege and Husserl parted (and when Russell, Moore and Wittgenstein followed Frege; and when Heidegger, Gadamer and Derrida followed Husserl), still remains.

I am not entirely sure what that sentence means, but it would be even more confusing without the semicolon. Even with a comma in place of the semicolon, it would not have been as clear. Avoiding confusion in complicated lists in only one use for the semicolon.

[KiethHoyt]

the semi colon. I don't get it .:brickwall
so I never use it.
I love the full stop though. :D

As soon as I saw the title of this post I knew someone was going to say the semicolon. I love it; however, not everyone knows to use them properly. That is the what drives me mad. Also, people who create run-on sentences using commas.

[Calidore]

Funny this came up. I've recently finished Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star, and the editor seems to have some trouble with punctuation in general, but especially semicolons. The book was loaded with sentences that used a comma where a semicolon belonged, and it got pretty distracting.

[Marbles]

@cacian,

Didn't have time to look into Kundera or Pamuk but here is an advanced example of semi colon use from Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Tolstoy is briefly recounting details of a character's early life.

"There was a liaison with one of the ladies who attached herself to the fashionable young lawyer; there was a milliner; there were drinking parties with visiting cavalry officers and visits to a certain streets in the suburbs after dinner; there was, too, servility to his employer and even his employer's wife. But all this was carried with such a tone of high propriety that none of it could be given a bad name: it all fell under the French saying il faut jeunesse se passe."

Replace semi colon with full stop and the sentences look simple and repetitive, as if a child has written them. And because each sentence in itself is complete and standalone so commas are out.

As you can see, sentences with semi colons are related to one another; they release information of a whole in bits, without digressing, like a cascade coming from the same source. They are components of one long sentence.

The sentence comes with a bonus: it has a colon as its own example!

[tailor STATELY]

I too use semi-colons regularly; I think my usage is consistent.

The absence of the Harvard, or Oxford, comma also drives me to distraction in a series after a conjunction, e.g., and; and don't get me started with i.e. and e.g. (with the added kerfluffle over the difference between American and British usage)... I still get confused.

My usage of "...", "()", and "-" often niggles readers (hee-hee).

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[KiethHoyt]

I too dislike when people do not use the Oxford comma. There is a big difference between, "Let's have some fruit, juice and toast," and "Let's have some fruit, juice, and toast."

[Paulclem]

Commas can be a pain to explain - Lynne Truss in Eats Shoots and Leaves is pretty clear on them. When I taught them I managed to reduce the rules to 3. It's a pity that semi-colons and colons aren't taught better as they are particularly useful in essays and fairly easy to understand.

Although it would be easy to become a grammar fascist and go around correcting wrongly apportioned apostrophes on plurals, I find it more funny than anything. I am aware, though, that it is a reflection on what has been taught - or not taught in school. I was a teacher for a number of years before I was properly taught grammar in what was termed the training for the new literacy hour in the UK in the 90's. The authorities became aware at some point that many primary school teachers grasp of grammar was less than secure and so instituted grammar training when they rolled out the initiative. I never looked back.

I went on to teach adults English and gradually deepened my knowledge having banished all those green lines from my word docs and trying to come up with a sensible set of rules that didn't bamboozle learners.

On the other hand, despite books from people like Lynne Truss, I have no problem reading and understanding Cormac McCarthy's novels where he uses little punctuation. I don't even miss it when I'm reading them which perhaps attests to McCarthy's skill with language and maybe our anal attitudes to correctness.

I like that I can understand why green lines appear on my word docs and I can get rid of them easily enough. From that point you can then innovate as McCarthy has done.

[Pompey Bum]

"Its" versus "it's": my IPad's auto-correct cannot be made to understand the difference. It makes me wrong. Can't we just change the rule?

[cacian]

"Its" versus "it's": my IPad's auto-correct cannot be made to understand the difference. It makes me wrong. Can't we just change the rule?

I have a particular dislike with ITS. I avoid it whenever I can however I can.
I do not mind IT's.