Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location

[Stella740pl]

I've just came upon this article, which may be of interest to this forum's members. (It was actually published three months ago, on February 18, 2008.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/nyregion/18semicolon.html

Another source, for which I don't have a link, gives some additional information on the topic - and the person.

[i]“I don’t worry about the future of the semicolon. It’s part of the structure of language, which always changes. Fewer people may use it, but it exists in literature. You won’t find many semicolons in a Steven King book, although the number of people who read his material on a given day is probably much larger than the total number of Proust readers in the last 90 years. It’s a matter of style and taste,”[/i] said [b]Neil Neches[/b], Corporate Communications Marketing Manager, a poet and a Brooklyn native who graduated from Tilden High and Brooklyn College with BA and MA degrees.

[i]“Proust wrote sentences that were almost a page long, thanks to the use of semicolons. He was part of the leisure class a century ago and he was sickly. Proust had time to write long paragraphs and the world was slower. Today, communication has become so much faster with satellite television, Internet fiber optics, and cell phones with text messaging and cameras. The semicolon isn’t a dodo bird; it won’t become extinct. It will just end up on the rare and endangered list – like a white tiger,”[/i] Neches said.

The New York Times article meant quite a bit to Neches.

[i]“I received a letter from a cousin I never knew I had. He is in New Jersey; his brother is in California. They read the story and wrote to me. So the semicolon not only brings independent clauses together, it also draws families
closer,”[/i] Neil said.

[i]“My doctor advised me to have a colonoscopy. However, in view of what’s happened, I will probably have a semicolonoscopy.[/i](Chuckle)”

 

[tcsbiz]

On an episode of The Sopranos, Christopher's girlfriend, Adriana, was to have surgery to remove part of her colon. He quipped that she would now have a semicolon.

The semicolon is not used, I think, because most people don't understand its usage; however, it may be that most people don't see it used.

 

[mmerlinn]

The semicolon in proper English may be on the endangered punctuation list, but as long as Javascript lives on it will be one of the cornerstone punctuation marks there.

mmerlinn

http://mmerlinn.com

"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Neil Neches, Corporate Communications Marketing Manager, a poet and a Brooklyn native who graduated from Tilden High and Brooklyn College with BA and MA degrees, may not have ever read a Stephen King book.

Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[SantaMufasa]

We teased mercilessly a co-worker, Simmie Kastner, who married a fellow whose surname was Colen. She, of course, technically became Simmie Colen, but she chose to keep her pre-marital moniker. (I wonder why.)

One of the reasons that the semicolon will never die results from the horizontal listing of qualified place names such as: San Francisco, California; New York City, New York; London, England; Paris, France; et cetera. What a mess those would become without the humble semicolon.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]