Semicolon
Ifeel I should apologise for the rather tame subject of this review, for today I bring you no accounts of death, destruction, magic, murder, or mayhem. Instead I offer a brief foray into the world of punctuation, a world which is not, in spite of what you may presume, without its moments of high drama.
Consider the famous (infamous?) New Brunswick case of the MILLION DOLLAR COMMA, which made headlines worldwide about 10 years ago. This unassuming mark of punctuation found itself precariously situated at the beginning of a qualifying clause in a contract between Rogers and Bell Aliant over the rental of hydro poles. This unfortunate “situation” led to a knock-down, drag-out, noholds-barred legal battle before the Crtc—resulting in a resounding victory for Rogers. As a pundit said, “Out of little marks of punctuation mighty misunderstandings grow!”
It is in this vein that Cecelia Watson presents us with this delightful publication, Semicolon: How a Misunderstood Punctuation Mark Can Improve Your Writing, Enrich Your Reading, and Maybe Even Change Your Life. (!!!) You’ll find it ripe with subtleties. For example, the title. She could simply and tamely have called it “The Semicolon”—aargh! death shivers!—which would have lumped it in with the driest of sections of style guides and grammars (alongside “the colon” “the misplaced modifier” or “the em dash”). Instead she titles it “SEMICOLON” (cf. “Alien”, “Asteroid”, or “Ghost”), which, thus unarticled, reveals her intention to discuss the semicolon not as a simple mark of punctuation but as a force of nature ....
We are described its miraculous conception in Venice in 1494. Columbus may well have been making a nuisance of himself on the ocean blue, but the real action was taking place in a collaboration between printer & publisher Aldus Manutius and type-designer Francesco Greffo, who, seeking a mark that was not quite as brief as a “,” and not quite as long as a “:”, came up with a “;”! Oh Brave New World!
What follows in Watson’s volume is a “biographical” history of the semicolon that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Throughout, Watson shows remarkable erudition coupled with a whimsical sense of humour. Consider some of her chapter headings: “The Science of Semicolons”, “Sexy Semicolons”, “Loose Women and Liquor Laws”, “The Minutiae of Mercy”. Curiously, you will be hard-pressed to find any instructions regarding the actual correct use of the semicolon. Such matters are beneath the author’s concerns.
We learn that the semicolon has been at times reviled by such notables as George Orwell , Donald Barthelme, and Kurt Vonnegut, the latter opining, “All they do is show you’ve been to college.” We learn that Mark Twain became right testy when his proofreaders interfered with his punctuation: “Yesterday Mr. Hall wrote that the printer’s proofreader was improving my punctuation for me & I telegraphed orders to have him shot without giving him time to pray.”
Readers are also treated to significant perigrinations through the social history of semicolons. We learn how the semicolon contributed to a spike in dipsomania among drinkers in Massachusetts. At issue was a law which forbade the selling of liquor “between the hours of 11 at night and 6 in the morning; nor during the Lord’s day, except that if the licensee is also licensed as an Innholder...” Lawsuits and countersuits over this evil semicolon, and the overall uncertainty surrounding its meaning, threw the hotel and the drinking business into chaos, and this misbegotten semicolon kept justices busy for a full five years.
In fact, it seems that few spheres of human activity have been left untouched by the vagaries of errant punctuation. From parking tickets to election results, from convictions for treason to death penalties for murder, punctuation has all too frequently been a deciding factor.
Spreading her expertise even further afield, Cecelia Watson provides an amusing history of the “grammar business” in 19th century America. With the spread of literacy, increased levels of reading, a relative growth in affluence, and decreased printing costs, grammar books became extremely popular. Grammar carpetbaggers abounded as self-proclaimed experts peddled the newest approaches to grammar like so much snake oil. It was at this time that sentence diagramming (the scourge of school children even today) reared its ugly head. Watson neatly ties the treatment of the semicolon and punctuation in general to a push towards “logic, natural science, and induction” in school curricula.
On a lighter note, Watson leads us through a semicolon version of a wine tasting, providing us with a subtle tour of various authors (#greatsemicolonsihaveknown) who have used this mark to great effect. She shows how Melville’s use of the semicolon in Moby Dick was key to the digressive and incidental quality of the work: “...the semicolons are in the service of carrying you slowly, gently, pleasurably away from whatever it was you thought you were reading about—the process of decapitating a whale, or how to assess winds, or cannibalism.” Raymond Chandler, Henry James, Irvine Welsh, Henry Thoreau—all are cited for their unique and innovative uses of the semicolon.
If there is an overall thrust to the work it is that narrow prescriptivism, as manifested in confining rules, is just plain wrong-headed. The only reason punctuation exists is to allow for a more precise rendering of thought into words. And the process of natural selection works as well in punctuation as it does in animal species.
Semicolon, by coming soon to
Library. Cecelia Watson, is Lennoxville Public
—Stephen Sheeran