[HN Gopher] The melancholy decline of the semicolon
___________________________________________________________________
The melancholy decline of the semicolon
Author : freddyym
Score : 135 points
Date : 2021-11-25 08:54 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (unherd.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (unherd.com)
| Pxtl wrote:
| It can't be accidental that the article has multiple paragraphs
| where they use an em dash where a semicolon would've also been
| appropriate.
| minimilian wrote:
| It uses an em rule where an _en rule_ would have been correct:
| em rules are not surrounded by spaces.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| I'm not giving in to the UK's bastardization of the en dash!
| The em dash was correct, it's just the spaces are wrong.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Twitter has rescued the semicolon for me as a way to save a
| character since an em-dash requires an extra space.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| You shouldn't do that with an em-dash.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| While some publications do add space on either side of an em-
| dash--including, apparently, the submitted website--I was
| always taught not to. It certainly isn't required.
| helmholtz wrote:
| 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.
| b3morales wrote:
| "Feel X" is perfectly valid for X either noun _or_ adjective:
|
| I feel sadness/I feel sad.
|
| I feel joy/I feel joyful.
| gryfft wrote:
| This article does not demonstrate understanding of the semicolon;
| it is used incorrectly in the first sentence, for crying out
| loud.
| Veen wrote:
| It uses the semi-colon to join independent clauses instead of a
| conjunction, which is fine. It might otherwise have read, "The
| semicolon is a profound public mystery, and the only
| punctuation mark that...". Nevertheless, it isn't a great
| showcase for the semi-colon's usefulness. The writer could have
| invented a more elegant example to begin the article; the one
| they chose is a prime example of a semi-colon that adds little
| to the sentence.
| joegahona wrote:
| A comma is not warranted in your alternate sentence.
| gryfft wrote:
| The second phrase is not an independent clause, which is the
| issue.
|
| > the only punctuation mark that regularly unites readers and
| writers in deep-seated repugnance
|
| There is not a subject and a verb; this is a fragment and
| does not stand alone. Prepending "it is" to the second clause
| would make this a proper sentence by making the second clause
| an independent clause instead of merely a noun modified by an
| adjectival prepositional phrase.
|
| Edit: I nerdsniped myself and it might not be strictly
| accurate to call it a prepositional phrase; 'that' is
| technically a conjunction in this case used to link its own
| subordinate clause, but that subordinate clause still does
| not complete the clause fragment whose subject is
| "[punctuation] mark." It's still just a modified noun.
| saurik wrote:
| OMG, LOL... it's literally the scenario from
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94ii6MVilw :(.
| vlmutolo wrote:
| I was looking for this comment. Thought I was going insane for
| a second.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > The melancholy decline of the semicolon
|
| I blame JavaScript developers. /s
| Flankk wrote:
| Possibly related? In both usages it is seen as elitist and
| unnecessary. I personally use them in JS because the code is
| aesthetically gross without them.
| [deleted]
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Clearly Lisp is the actual source of all evil ;)
| lvncelot wrote:
| S-Expressions, the sin is right there in the name.
| phoe-krk wrote:
| A semicolon in Lisp starts a comment. Despite how bad some
| comments can be, I kinda doubt comments are the source of all
| evil in general.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I had been hoping this was about lisp comments. :)
| not-my-account wrote:
| "And so any student whose deployment of a semi-colon is not
| absolutely Mozart-esque knows that they're going to get a C in my
| class" - David Foster Wallace
| jmnicolas wrote:
| Fun fact: the semicolon won't decline soon in France (and a few
| other countries I think): it's what we use instead of commas for
| CSV files!
|
| However I never use it when writing anything, I'm not even sure
| what's its usage.
| _def wrote:
| I'm not super sure but you probably could've used one instead
| of the comma in your last sentence. I think people just use
| other symbols instead: comma, dash and period.
| delecti wrote:
| I think Germany does that as well. It was very confusing to
| inherit code that "accepted CSVs", but didn't accept files
| where the values were comma-separated.
| mbfg wrote:
| Fortunately, programmers have taken up the cause and boosted the
| semicolon to it's rightful place.
| bsder wrote:
| Meh. Grammar, in general, is on a steep suckiness trend.
|
| For example, when was the last time you saw someone on the web
| actually use the correct past tense of "lead (verb, transitive)"?
| forgatmigej wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway2077 wrote:
| 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.
| dsr_ wrote:
| "costed" is proper when referring to the past action of
| determining the price for something to purchase. "Last week
| Sheila costed out the parts list, so it should be accurate."
|
| "priced" is proper for both the past actions of determining
| the price of something to purchase or something to sell.
|
| "Last week Sheila priced out the parts list, so it should be
| accurate."
|
| "Last week Sheila priced everything on the shelves."
| beardyw wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29274875#29276377
|
| 8 days ago, 3 times.
| bsder wrote:
| Erm, at least one of those is unusually wrong:
|
| "The doors are not always hidden - they clearly separate
| these two worlds, and may also led to very nice places that
| are just not public."
|
| Presumably a typo.
| beardyw wrote:
| True, and one of the others is mine - not really sure I can
| claim I read it! Still ... one.
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| What is the correct past tense of lead? I thought it was "led",
| but I can't remember having ever read any other form?
|
| What often irks me, as a non-native speaker, is the wrong
| subjunctive (if that's what it's called). People say and write
| all the time "I wish you were there", when they mean "I wish
| you had been there". At least I'm pretty sure that's how it's
| supposed to be...
| dsr_ wrote:
| Present: "He leads me to believe in grammatical rigor."
|
| Past: "She led me to that conclusion long ago."
|
| Past, growing popular but historically incorrect: "She lead
| me to that conclusion long ago."
|
| Noun: "I licked the sweet lead off the wall."
|
| Also noun: "After six rounds of chess-boxing-sprinting, it
| was not clear to either of the participants who had the
| lead."
|
| Also also popular but historically incorrect noun: "We have
| eighty thousand lead-free ornaments on this wall, each lit by
| an individually-addressable led."
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| This is spelling, not grammar. It's the same word, not a
| noun, spelled differently.
| dsr_ wrote:
| "I wish you were here" -- in this location, now or in the
| past.
|
| "I wish you were there" -- at another location, now or in the
| past.
|
| "I wish you had been there" -- at another location, in the
| past.
|
| "had been" means that the action is concluded. "were" is for
| both continuing and concluded actions, and more words are
| necessary to glark it from context.
| ghkbrew wrote:
| "I wish you were here." is grammatically correct in English.
| And yes it is the "subjunctive mood". Its meaning is closer
| to "I wish for you to be here" than "I wish you had been
| here".
|
| This random page I found on the internet has a pretty decent
| explanation of the subjunctive:
|
| https://www.learngrammar.net/a/examples-of-the-
| subjunctive-m...
| secondcoming wrote:
| "I wish you were _there_", not "I wish you were here"
| bsder wrote:
| > I thought it was "led"
|
| It _is_ "led". I notice the web using "lead" for both the
| present and past forms a _lot_ --presumably because it sneaks
| past spelling checkers and autocorrect. (There's also a
| correspondence to "read" (long e) where "read" (short e) is
| also the past tense. Yeah, welcome to English.)
|
| And, I'm almost sorry for pointing it out if you haven't
| noticed it. Once you do notice it, you see it everywhere and
| it's a big, jarring speedbump when you read.
| zuj wrote:
| 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)
| comeonseriously wrote:
| There are people who hate python because of the forced
| indentation. They indent their code in their language of
| choice, they just don't want something FORCING them to do it.
|
| I'm always flabbergasted at this argument.
| krisrm wrote:
| I suppose I don't quite match the reasoning you're
| describing, but here's mine. I indent; I just don't want
| semantic meaning ascribed to whether or not I'm missing an
| indent. I'll handle the {}s, my editor handles the indent
| level, and everyone gets along fine.
| seoaeu wrote:
| I don't indent my code, my autoformatter does. It is way less
| effort to get the braces right and then have the indent level
| inferred automatically
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| All usable editors also infer the indent levels of brace-
| less languages. Sometimes you have to change that using a
| <tab> or <shift>-<tab>, but sometimes I have to write
| braces in languages with braces too.
| comeonseriously wrote:
| Automated tools get in my way of thinking. I turn off
| intellisense, auto-formatters, etc...
|
| I'll run auto tools during check-in, but not during coding
| sessions.
| soledades wrote:
| No find and replace, either? ;)
| comeonseriously wrote:
| I use those. But how would those be automated exactly?
| How would they know what I want to find and replace?
| EMM_386 wrote:
| > 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.
| vidarh wrote:
| 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.
| comeonseriously wrote:
| I already know what I want to type. Having something pop
| up with "suggestions", often obscuring the lines I need
| to read, is worthless to me at best and disruptive of my
| thinking at worst.
|
| If I can't recall
| "x.somePropertyThatHasARidiculousNameIAlwaysForget" then
| there are other more serious problems.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| > If I can't recall
| "x.somePropertyThatHasARidiculousNameIAlwaysForget" then
| there are other more serious problems.
|
| I just prefer to press less keys. It shouldn't obscure
| anything in a decent IDE.
|
| Often you are working with other people's code and having
| to "recall" every single property, method, etc declared
| is not practical, hence why I mentioned having to keep
| referring to the documentation for things you are not
| accessing very often.
|
| If I keep forgetting that a property is .lastname and not
| .lastName in a library I'm using I can just type "last"
| and press tab.
|
| This is even more crucial in dynamic languages like JS,
| where you will get a failure at runtime and not compile
| time.
|
| It doesn't make you any "less of a programmer", it makes
| you a more efficient one once you are used to it.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Python and Rust have two fundamentally different philosophies.
| Python is all about quick and intuitive programming and it's
| pretty good at that, though in turn you can get more kinds of
| bugs and runtime errors that could have been avoided with
| proper type checking and other measures.
|
| Meanwhile Rust avoids any kind of behaviour that isn't clearly
| visible in the code. That includes unambiguous syntax, like the
| mandatory curly braces for loops and conditions. And of course
| the semicolon as a clear separator, which comes in handy when
| iterators or the builder pattern are used.
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| That argument has the flaw of not working with Haskell, OCaml
| or F# ;)
|
| Really, Rust only doesn't look like OCaml because less people
| would use it if it wouldn't have braces and semicolons.
|
| Found this post, for example:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5607912
| the__alchemist wrote:
| In Rust, omitting a semicolon has a special meaning, ie a
| return from an expression. So, you can't just ditch it.
|
| I wouldn't mind Python's whitespace indents in Rust though!
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| > In Rust, omitting a semicolon has a special meaning, ie a
| return from an expression. So, you can't just ditch it.
|
| Of course you could, because a semicolon-less return doesn't
| work in the middle of a statement.
|
| You can't do bla; a bla
| bla; b
|
| instead of bla; return a;
| bla bla; b
|
| Yes, the code after the `return` isn't reachable and the Rust
| compiler doesn't like that ;)
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| But that would mean {123 456} + {789}
|
| was 1245 instead of 124_245.
| Tyr42 wrote:
| 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
| mad, right?
|
| So if you're going to terminate expressions with ), and start
| them with (, why not just terminate them with ; instead?
|
| Javascript is a "Semicolons Optional" language, but it's
| actually the worst of both worlds, as you have to be very
| careful not to wrap lines like function() {
| some stuff; return
| really_long_named_thing; }
|
| As it'll just insert a ; on the return, returning undefined for
| you.
| PhineasRex wrote:
| To be fair, that's really more of a python-specific
| deficiency than a general problem with significant
| whitespace. Haskell for example interprets further-indented
| lines as a continuation of the current expression, only
| ending the expression when it sees a new line of the same or
| lesser indentation.
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| As I wrote, you have to do similar things when using
| Haskell (or F# or OCaml) in the REPL. Python just doesn't
| have a special 'non-REPL' syntax.
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| > In Python you need to be careful to wrap that in () or use
| a \
|
| I guess that's because in the REPL Python need's to know
| whether the line has finished yet or not. OCaml and F# uses
| two semicolons ';;' for that purpose, but only in the REPL.
| In Haskell you can use braces and semicolons or '{:' and ':}'
| in the REPL.
| zuj wrote:
| Love the examples, thanks for ELI5.
| jbaber wrote:
| I'm pretty happy with the choices made in rust and python. Just
| want to note that the : in Python is just as superfluous (as
| rubyists will tell you) and kept only for readability, not for
| parsing.
| post-it wrote:
| In Rust, a block that ends with an expression without a
| semicolon returns that expression. It lets you write terse
| things like let x = if y { a } else { b }
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| Kotlin does the same but without semicolons so it would seem
| not to be essential.
| igorkraw wrote:
| Because then there'd be ambiguity between a function ending and
| returning unit (nothing) or returning whatever the last line
| expression returns. You could change things around this, but
| Rust has a goal of unambiguous syntax, hence also the
| turbofish::<>
| vvillena wrote:
| Rust uses the semicolon to distinguish between statements and
| expressions.
| zuj wrote:
| Yes, coming from python it took a while for me to wrap my
| head around this.
| vlmutolo wrote:
| It's a lot easier to format code arbitrarily when a language is
| whitespace-independent.
|
| For example, to do method chaining across multiple lines,
| Python requires parentheses around the whole chain. That's a
| quirk of being a whitespace-dependent language.
|
| In general, I think people who advocate for braces and
| semicolons just find it easier to reason about the code when
| they know that the formatting doesn't matter. All the flow is
| done via visible glyphs.
| gnufx wrote:
| Haskell has an alternative parens-and-braces syntax to the
| offside rule; that was meant particularly for machine-
| generated code if I remember correctly.
|
| Edit: I meant to add: you need to decide whether ";" is
| terminates or joins statements if you have statements in the
| language.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| It's a trade-off. You can either assume all statements end at
| the end of the line, and require a continuation character
| (backslash in Python) if that isn't the case; or you can
| require a statement terminator (semicolon/closing brace in
| Rust) for all statements.
|
| The downside of assuming statements end at the end of the line
| is that you need to have special rules for when that isn't the
| case (such as Python's implicit statement continuation inside
| braces), while always having a terminator is simpler and more
| consistent (all statements end with a semicolon) at the cost of
| extra characters.
| zuj wrote:
| Thanks, this makes perfect sense. Python we are using \n
| instead of ; as the statement terminator.
|
| Just didn't got what you mean by "python's implicit statement
| continuation inside braces" ?
| Hendrikto wrote:
| I think he is referring to x = (
| object .method1() .method2() )
| zuj wrote:
| Right, gotcha!
| ineedasername wrote:
| 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 while. Over time, I recognized that when I found myself
| reaching for the technique it meant that I probably needed to
| restructure things into more discrete chunks that build
| sequentially. When possible, conveying complex information
| benefits from as simple a structure as the information can
| manage.
| layer8 wrote:
| > Over time, I recognized that when I found myself reaching for
| the technique
|
| I had a similar experience with parentheses.
| boulos wrote:
| I'm surprised they didn't mention the controversial Vonnegut
| advice to never use semicolons (e.g., [1]).
|
| [1]
| https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/vonnegut...
| leksak wrote:
| "Or Kurt Vonnegut, who famously advised against their use" is
| in the article
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| If you read the article linked in the comment, they say
| Vonnegut was, probably, kidding about the semicolons.
| drittich wrote:
| Who probably also advised to never listen to advice from
| successful authors.
| csee wrote:
| It isn't clear whether his advice here is just humor. This
| article goes on to explain that he uses semicolons in his own
| work, even in places where he didn't need to.
| vidarh wrote:
| It might be part humourous, part the type of advice that is
| good for those that don't know when to break it.
|
| It's easy to over-use semicolons, and you often see people
| who have just discovered them use them all over the place for
| no good reason.
| pram wrote:
| Counterpoint: tools like Grammarly frequently recommended
| semicolons, so I've actually been using them more than ever
| before recently.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| I think kids have had "avoid run-on sentences" drummed into them
| so hard that they've become very hesitant to use alternative
| punctuation that would lengthen sentences.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| I love the semicolon, as a tool to judiciously include in the
| toolkit, for when you want to join two sentences more
| emphatically. It even helps you be concise and emphatic; this
| sentence demonstrates how.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I am seeing a use of the instruments that seems quite confused.
|
| The semicolon is part of the division of the expression of
| thought in supersets and subsets of structural affinity: comma,
| semicolon, period, new paragraph. (Which also means that the
| semicolon has a necessary role in general: whenever the structure
| is best defined also using that level of affinity.)
|
| The dash, the colon and the brackets are instead related to the
| modality of relation: the colon to express dependency, the dash
| to provide detail, the brackets to insert a note parallel to the
| main flow.
|
| (Note: there is also a sub-function of the semicolon to separate
| list items. I did not use it in the paragraph just above as I
| intended to exploit the "nuclear" aspect of comma-separated list
| items, but that is a rhetorical option and the semicolon would
| have been necessary for more complex items.)
| minimilian wrote:
| Did you mean `full-stop' in your 2nd paragraph, or are you
| ascribing a double role to the colon and ignoring the full-
| stop?
|
| According to Fowler (The King's English), there was a time when
| the difference between , ; : . was merely quantitative (which
| explains the name `semicolon').
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| I'm not sure that time is passed.
|
| I was in college only ten years ago, and my English
| professor's key insight to punctuation is that it's to define
| framing and tempo for your sentences.
|
| That the sequence you listed is the pause count -- similar to
| different empty spaces in music. Punctuation is just the
| negative space to frame your thoughts!
|
| And perhaps a bit of tonality.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Thank you! Now corrected. Informally: incredibly, one reads
| and re-reads, edits multiple times in a span of hours, and
| still leaves errors and imprecisions. Of course it was the
| period or "full-stop" - in reading, also as I had defined the
| colon differently in the next paragraph...
|
| By the way, you made me note that 'full-stop' is British
| English and 'period' is American English. As some of us
| prefer to write in International English - "OED", or "British
| spelling with -ize graecisms" in international contexts, I
| have never considered if there is some solid orientation also
| about terminology - 'full-stop' vs. 'period', 'lift' vs.
| 'elevator'...
| Symbiote wrote:
| "UN English" generally follows British/Oxford usage,
| although there are a few exceptions: writing "Mr." with the
| full stop, "sulfur" rather than "sulphur", "1.30 pm" (not
| 1:30 pm or 13:30) etc.
|
| I think it's a decent compromise. All the Zs make it look
| weird to British readers, and all the Us make it look weird
| to Americans.
|
| https://www.un.org/dgacm/en/content/editorial-
| manual/punctua... ("full stop").
| minimilian wrote:
| Writing `Mr.' is like writing `3rd.': the point in
| abbreviations is an ellipsis, but there is nothing after
| the `r' in `Mister'.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| M'r?
| [deleted]
| elliekelly wrote:
| This makes the most sense. Like Ma'am for Madam.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Well yes, it should really be Mr and 3r. The latter is
| still in common use, the former not so much.
| minimilian wrote:
| Agreed. References to occurrences of M^r are welcome.
| minimilian wrote:
| One advantage of `full-stop' -- apart from its being
| British -- is that it fits referring to the Greek semicolon
| as a ``half-stop''.
| jorgesborges wrote:
| This is an excellent comment thank you. You put into words some
| of my unconscious inklings. Is there any reading you can
| recommend on the topic that isn't a dry grammar manual --
| something akin to Strunk and White, or a good blog? If not I
| suppose you could write one :)
| EMM_386 wrote:
| I find it interesting that I am using semicolons _more_ these
| days because clients like my work Outlook recommend it in places
| I wouldn 't use it but are correct; as a result, I use it more
| often.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| And no fucks; were given.
| every wrote:
| Semicolons drown adventurers every day in NetHack and show no
| signs of decline:
|
| https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/;
| wruza wrote:
| I've read some shelves in my life, and from a reader's
| perspective a good read has never made me think about what
| punctuation the author used. This is an inside nonsense which
| only worries idling writers and critics.
| kqr wrote:
| I considered Frankenstein to be a good read. Compared to the
| stuff I read before, Shelley's frequent use of the semicolon
| did startle me. And taught me its proper usage.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| >a good read has never made me think about what punctuation the
| author used
|
| I can with certainty conclude that you have never ever read any
| Cormac McCarthy or Charles Dickens, and you should, if only to
| illustrate each extreme of the milieu which you've thus far
| ignored.
| derbOac wrote:
| The only certainty about writing rules is that good writers
| break them.
| 1121redblackgo wrote:
| My goal was to read one book this year after reading none the
| previous couple years. My friend and I chose Blood Meridian
| >< and it has been a challenging foray back into the
| hobby/reading life that I am not sure I would choose again.
| Good book though for sure.
| Decabytes wrote:
| I find it amusing that programmers use semicolons more often then
| writers.
| amelius wrote:
| Programming is the new literacy.
| contingencies wrote:
| In that case, it seems the literati are opting to curtail
| their own literacy; recent languages trend toward reducing
| them: Python, Ruby, Rust.
| hjtkfkfmr wrote:
| Nature finds a way to balance things...
| dash2 wrote:
| Ah, the colon. To misquote Denis Leary, never use a punctuation
| symbol named after part of your ass. And then the semicolon.
| Half-assed by name, half-assed by nature.
| beebeepka wrote:
| That only makes sense in English and it's not even funny
| peter_retief wrote:
| But wait; why not give it, another chance.
| dsr_ wrote:
| I dislike your comma more than your semi-colon, and persist in
| thinking that a question mark is a better choice than a period.
| peter_retief wrote:
| Well spotted?
| kreeben wrote:
| No, because the semicolon is dead; long live the semicolon.
| tentacleuno wrote:
| The semicolon is dead; long live the semicolon.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| The semicolon is dead; long live the semicolon.
|
| I'm particularly bored tonight.
| hairofadog wrote:
| I know you're kidding but golly does comma misuse stop me in my
| tracks every time. I can slide past almost any other spelling
| or style error without a second thought, or even crazy
| autocorrect errors in which, say, the word "mother" has been
| replaced with "toaster", but this sort of comma misuse is like
| nails on a chalkboard to me. And it's _rampant_.
| secondcoming wrote:
| A misplaced comma can change the meaning of text entirely.
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180723-the-commas-
| tha...
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| It was to be expected; people are often unsure how to use it.
| einpoklum wrote:
| _" The semicolon is a profound public mystery; the only
| punctuation mark that regularly unites readers and writers in
| deep-seated repugnance."_
|
| That sentence should have used a colon, not a semi-colon, IIANM.
|
| _The digital world churns; Twitter is not an arena known for
| reflection. Semicolons, then, are snottily elitist and shadily
| indirect._
|
| The elitist snottiness is in assuming people live their lives on
| Twitter and the like. They don't.
|
| _the semicolon has been usurped by ... the Dash_
|
| Well, _maybe_ some authors use more dashes than they used to (I
| actually doubt that, but never mind) - but a dash is not a
| substitute for semicolon. Their semantics are too different for
| that to be possible, IMHO. Take the first sentence in this
| paragraph: You can't replace the dash there with a semicolon, as
| that would mean splitting the "maybe" and "but" clauses into
| separate, not-directly-related clauses; you just can't do that.
|
| _indicating a pause_
|
| Not just a pause; a semicolon is also a semantic distancing. Two
| phrases separated by a comma are really an inseparable part of
| the same idea idea; if you separate them by a semicolon, they can
| each stand in their own right.
| amelius wrote:
| > Two phrases separated by a comma are really an inseparable
| part of the same idea idea; if you separate them by a
| semicolon, they can each stand in their own right.
|
| A semicolon is a period and a comma combined. This makes me
| think that if the first part logically should end with a
| question mark or exclamation mark, we should have corresponding
| symbols for that.
| astura wrote:
| I'll save you a click, this is just faux-intellectual drivel.
| bobsuroncle wrote:
| "Vonnegut's First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are
| transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All
| they do is show you've been to college. (From A Man Without a
| Country)" - https://lithub.com/kurt-vonneguts-greatest-writing-
| advice/
| im3w1l wrote:
| Sentence length has gone down a lot, it feels like. So really,
| the semicolon has not been replaced by the dash, but by the
| period.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| In my native language classes I was always told by my teachers
| to try to make shorter sentences. If I do a second pass, I
| always delete words or split sentences into two.
| bovermyer wrote:
| I have no data to back this up, but this feels accurate to me.
|
| Anecdotally, I still use the semicolon when I write. Sometimes
| it just seems like the most natural way to bridge two thoughts.
| Causality1 wrote:
| For a couple of decades now college professors have been death
| on passive voice sentences, which tends to create students and
| then writers who avoid long sentences for fear they aren't
| "punchy" enough.
| bradrn wrote:
| And the sad thing is, they don't even know what the passive
| voice is! See G. K. Pullum, _Fear and Loathing of the English
| Passive_
| [http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.html].
| Their unintentional hypocrisy is quite something, e.g.:
|
| > ... it makes little difference if you decide to look at
| prose written by the advisers on usage themselves. Consider
| the beginning of E. B. White's introduction to his revision
| of The Elements of Style (Strunk & White 2000). I underline
| the head verbs of the passive VPs ... Six instances of
| transitive verbs appear here: took, called, required, called,
| known, and printed. Five of them are in the passive. That's
| over 83 percent.
| Causality1 wrote:
| I wonder how much it contributed to the recent rise of
| present-tense fiction, which I find unpleasant to read.
| seoaeu wrote:
| A lot of that article feels like too much of a gotcha.
| There _is_ a difference between "Alice died of a gunshot
| wound" and "Bob fatally shot Alice". The fact that neither
| one is passive voice according to the author's definition
| doesn't mean that people are wrong for being upset if Bob
| is left out of the headline. It really seems like missing
| the point to counter complaints that Bob isn't suitably
| blamed in a headline by pointing out that the grammar is
| fine!
| Renevith wrote:
| But it _also_ seems like missing the point for people to
| criticize that headline for a grammatical error
| (falsely!) when they really just want Bob to be named...
| which is exactly the point of that article, right?
| seoaeu wrote:
| They weren't criticizing the headline for a grammatical
| error (after all, passive voice isn't grammatically
| wrong). Rather they were using incorrect grammatical
| terminology to express their actual complaint: that the
| emphasis wasn't on Bob for committing murder!
| Sebb767 wrote:
| When you need to write text for a wide audience, shorter
| sentences are usually preferable. Most business schools even
| teach briefness as an explicit target, as far as I know. That's
| quite different compared to the origins of writing, where the
| target were (usually) very literate people.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Briefness does not (and cannot) go against proper structuring
| - structure exists regardless of brevity. Comma, semicolon,
| period, new paragraph: the expressed thought has a structure
| and its sets of relative closeness are indicated through
| them.
| darkerside wrote:
| 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 great in spite of the floweriness,
| not because of it.
| mannykannot wrote:
| 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 these non-lexical clues all help
| us converge quickly on the intended meaning.
|
| There have been several suggestions as to what might be just
| as good as a semicolon, but the period is a new one to me,
| and I strongly suspect that there are many cases where this
| substitution would interrupt a reader's flow. Given the
| importance, semantically, of the sentence, there are probably
| cases where this would corrupt the meaning.
| darkerside wrote:
| 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.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I enjoy using semicolons when writing, a dash is not always
| appropriate.
|
| Bonus points if it makes me look like a pompous loner going
| against society.
|
| Reject modernity, embrace semicolons.
| jebronie wrote:
| Reject modernity; embrace semicolons.
| __s wrote:
| Semicolons aren't just for high literature:
| https://serprex.github.io/w/;
|
| > Semicolons are hot
|
| Dash seems a poor substitute. A dash is closer to a period.
| Semicolons work well for when just using multiple commas would
| become ambiguous. Shorter sentences also solve that, but
| sometimes you want a run on sentence, sometimes you want to
| splice more context in at this very point. & sometimes you just
| want to drop a conjunction
| kreeben wrote:
| >> 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.
|
| ?
| __s wrote:
| 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 the band's
| name is always "of Montreal"
| tsimionescu wrote:
| >(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
| msla wrote:
| > (tho you then have French as it is spoken & French as it
| is specified)
|
| Which means French has no spec, either, merely people
| trying to create a specification and failing.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Those are both fine because they're proper names.
|
| Using "&" in place of the word "and" _does_ depart from
| common usage (though there 's no "law") and does so in such
| an overt way that it appears pretentious.
| dmitryminkovsky wrote:
| > The semicolon is an element of language that communicates
| stops, pauses, reflections, and cigarette breaks within a
| sentence. It connects loose ends with disparate ideas;
|
| In this regard I think the decline of the semicolon is related to
| the fact that we write knowing that our message will be competing
| for attention in a busy inbox or feed. Our audience is the
| harried, harassed reader. There's not much room for reflection or
| whimsy in such settings.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| I might have this wrong but there was a definite use case for the
| semi-colon: it follows a colon in a list; can be used as a more
| flowing version of a bullet point list; can do so without
| interrupting the readers chain of thought.
|
| edit: grammarly says I'm wrong and that should be a colon
| followed by a comma separated list. I might just be old or
| confused.
| vmception wrote:
| > "All they do is show you've been to college." The symbol is
| facing the same melancholy fate as the dodo, the dinosaur, and
| the Soviet Union.
|
| Consensus is a beautiful thing.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Sometimes the semicolon is the best tool for the job.
| mac-chaffee wrote:
| 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
| tomcam wrote:
| 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.
| vernie wrote:
| Younger generations interpret it differently.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Younger generation needs Grammarly too, so there's that.
| The lack of punctuation in messaging apps is part of where
| I point to blame.
| ghoomketu wrote:
| 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.." which my American boss got really angry to
| read. For us it just means i'm writing to tell you, but many
| people esp from older gen use this a lot here to sound cool.
| zdragnar wrote:
| While "intimate" can mean be familiar or familial,
| "intimidate" is a much more common and threatening word; due
| to being so much more common I can imagine it would be easy
| to misread and get a very different feeling from what you had
| intended. "I am writing to intimidate you..." is definitely
| not a good message to send to your boss.
|
| > No wonder text is so emotionless and people misread and get
| angry
|
| Native speakers definitely struggle with this as well. There
| is a diffucult balance between being too succinct (curt,
| impolite) and excessively wordy (feels forced or contrived,
| muddles the message).
|
| Personally, when I communicate st work, I tend to phrase
| things as questions- either as a standalone comment or as a
| preamble to my argument. That way, I am (hopefully) clear
| that I am trying to be inclusive, rather than divisive, and I
| think it makes people less likely to project emotion from
| their own assumptions into what I write.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > "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.
| tacon wrote:
| >"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
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > the first use is most certainly not an archaism in
| North American English
|
| I understand your point and applaud your literacy.
| However, it's not a verb in common usage, and if our
| friend is using the verb _to intimate_ in North American
| _business English_ in any sense, I would advise him that
| the term is an archaism.
|
| We can discuss at further leisure whether any given
| literary usage has at least one foot in the crypt of
| liberal education. ^_^
|
| OED shows that the Indian English usage that we are
| discussing definitely comes from prior British English
| acceptations.
|
| > which nicely keeps "intimate details" from sounding too
| much like "mating". :-)
|
| OED also offers "one who intimates" to be an "intimater".
| (o;
| rackjack wrote:
| Example of the difference between American and Indian
| English:
|
| https://i.redd.it/fhmx835buxl51.jpg
| behnamoh wrote:
| 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 alphabet; we
| can't even change the symbols on keyboards (who says I must
| only use `~!@#$%^&* ... on my keyboard?) Sure you can use
| unicode characters, but why haven't the special characters on
| keyboards changed at all since the 80s? The answer:
| standardization.
|
| The evolution of languages, words, alphabets, and special
| characters helped shape the way we think about things, and
| since the 20th century, that hasn't changed that much.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| dharmaturtle wrote:
| I totally agree with you. I like using symbols to shape the
| way I think, and I find using AutoHotKey to to expand typed
| strings works well for my workflow. Stuff like "qbeta",
| "qright", "qdegree" and "q@" become b, -, deg, and my email.
| Very useful when I was in university.
|
| These days, I use it to type stuff like (;wa; ) -\\_(tsu)_/-
| and a black box symbol that HN won't let me type, but is eye
| catching for when you're scanning logs. Symbols like
| checkmark, x, the thinking emoji, and the hourglass are
| useful when taking notes.
|
| Lots can be found in the Windows 10 emoji finder (Win +
| Period), but AHK is more customizable. Also WinPeriod is
| juuuuust that much more friction and I find AHK fits into my
| flow better. This flow shapes the way I think.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You might find WinCompose useful. It gives you the compose
| key ([?]):
|
| [?]oo - deg
|
| [?]<- - -
|
| [?](12) - 12
|
| [?]25 - 2/5
|
| Of course, you can change the compose key rules.
| reissbaker wrote:
| Emojis would like a word with you ;)
|
| In all seriousness, I think standardizing letters and symbols
| has done a lot to promote basic literacy. And there are
| plenty of language innovations like slang, emojis, kaomoji,
| new words like email, the prevalence of alternate text
| treatments like bolds, italics, underlines, strikethroughs,
| etc etc.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Heh, I think my daughters generation will just replace them
| with emojis.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| That web page that makes combinations of emojis should also
| be able to combine them with punctuation, so you can make a
| frowning period, or a goofy semicolon, etc.
| layer8 wrote:
| ;)
| elb2020 wrote:
| "It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y."
|
| "It looks like you forgot to do X. That's needed to do Y."
|
| I would actually prefer the second one here. It's neutral and
| to the point.
|
| I guess the problem with the first one is that the reader might
| interpret the semicolon exactly in the way that you intended
| it, as an attempt on your behalf to "control the tone".
| Depending on the personal disposition of the receiver he or she
| may or may not like it.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Oh, weird, I find the second off-putting. It's a bit..
| Patronizing? Like you're some superior giving orders.
| dgellow wrote:
| > Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone
|
| I will forever refuse this idea. I use a period to end my
| sentences because that's how a sentence ends, not to
| communicate a tone.
| tpoacher wrote:
| Fine. Do that then.
| bitwize wrote:
| I was hoping The Lonely Island would raise the semicolon's
| profile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94ii6MVilw
| paulcole wrote:
| If you're a good enough writer to know how to property use a
| semicolon, you're a good enough writer to not need to use one.
| drittich wrote:
| And, possibly, a good enough writer to know that just because
| you don't need to do something doesn't mean you shouldn't do
| it.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _to not need to use one_
|
| Why should one avoid using it.
| kreeben wrote:
| Because people have a problem with punctuation?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _people have a problem with punctuation_
|
| What do you mean?
|
| I hope it's not something like "[some] people are confused
| by numbers, so avoid numbers". Of course (special contexts
| aside), those people should fix their problem with numbers,
| and whenever numbers are useful or duly for the purpose of
| communication, they should be there. The same for
| punctuation or any other function.
| paulcole wrote:
| 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.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| 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 eventually well and properly done. This
| rules out misplacing said "nuts and bolts".
|
| Pride has nothing to do with it - to use logarithms for
| magnitudes is not "showing off".
| paulcole wrote:
| 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.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| 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.
| paulcole wrote:
| Because language evolves. Today essentially nobody uses a
| semicolon in conversational and casual writing.
|
| For the average person, using a semicolon is an
| affectation like wearing a fedora. Some people look good
| doing it but most don't.
| codr7 wrote:
| I tend to use it as another level of separation where needed,
| where comma is used for something else internally.
| blockwriter wrote:
| There are the rules, and then there is the intuitive rationale
| that a writer finds for using a certain grammatical form. The
| improved quality of writer's writing is often premised upon these
| rationales. If the rationale is intuitive to the writer, it is
| likely that the reader's cognitive overhead will be reduced as
| well. This contributes to a reader's truly felt pleasure when
| they realize what they're reading is good.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| RavinduL wrote:
| for (let i = 0-- i < 3-- ++i) {
| console.log("no semicolons!")-- }
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