Well isn’t that Grammarnator a little smartie pants! I’m glad the Grammarnatrix was able to bring him out of hibernation, even if it was at the Grammarnatrix’s expense! I would agree with him, however, that the Insider doesn’t offer a lot of fodder for the column, but we persevere…
The fodder for today is the use (or lack of use) of semicolons. Kurt Vonnegut dismisses them saying, “Don’t use semicolons. . . All they do is show you’ve been to school.” Noah Lukeman, literary agent and author, boasts they’re “the most elegant of all forms of punctuation.” True, these guys are authors and not journalists, but whether you believe Noah or Kurt, the issue in using a semicolon seems to be: semicolon or comma? Comma or semicolon?
The Grammarnatrix likes using semicolons; everyone will know she’s been to school! Semicolons separate sentences that are closely related and which could stand alone as sentences. The Insider sentence, “No – they’re on shelves, they’re in piles, they’re under the bed, and they’re not very well organized,” would be better served with semicolons because each section separated by a comma could be its own sentence. If you put periods instead of the commas you’d have many short-choppy sentences in a row, which could also call for semicolons. The changed version, “No – they’re on shelves; they’re in piles; they’re under the bed, and they’re not very well organized” gives the Grammarnatrix a sign of relief.
Noah may think this changed version makes the sentence elegant, and Kurt may think the Grammarnatrix is trying to sound educated. No matter. The Grammarnatrix knows we will all sleep better knowing when to use a semicolon.
