Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Quote, unquote: fierce for the semi-colon

"I would go to the wall for the semi-colon."
-- Barbara Zatyko, Magazines Canada General Manager & Publisher.

Good to know.

[This was provoked by an article in The Guardian about whether the semi-colon was "a parasite, a timid, fainthearted, insipid thing" or "a most upmarket punctuation mark".]

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Semi-colons are a perfectly legitimate and useful punctuation mark. Grammar rules dictate that its use is to link two dependent clauses with a coordinating conjunction (A.K.A. the FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). It’s a shame that grammar is no longer taught in schools; however, I believe all is not lost for this lovely mark of puctuation!

P.S. “However” is another fantastic conjunctive word for use with a semi-colon!

8:09 am  

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