transvestite hermaphrodites

[freckles_and_doubt]

The late, lamented Kurt Vonnegut apparently doesn't think much of semi-colons: they are, he says, "transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college."

Oops. He has something resembling a point, in that one of the basic editing jobs I need to do on pretty much anything I write is to sneak through the wordy thickets with a shotgun, scientifically decimating the semi-colons as they peacefully roost amid the clauses. I seem to think naturally in semicolons, possibly because of a pathological need for balance: on the one hand, this, on the other, that. It is, as Vonnegut suggests, a vice to which the academic writer is particularly prone; its careful weightedness can, indeed, be pretentious.

On the other hand, while I try to cut down on the vice I don't think that it's valid to demand I give it up completely; I'm not sure I agree with him that semicolons are "transvestite hermaphrodites". In its shy, bashful way the semicolon is a valid little gidgit, unassumingly linking two clauses whose connection is too important to be disrupted by the solid, divisive thump of a full stop or the portentous pause of the colon. It's a coded deep breath, a neatly-encapsulated "also". It offers a useful alternative to the headlong rush of the comma so beloved by my reckless undergrads, whose tendency to gaily link strings of clauses with commas causes me active, green-inked pain. Shotgun and Kurt Vonnegut notwithstanding, I like semicolons and wish to pet them, like shy fluffy birds.

Grammatical musings aside, thank FSM it's Friday. I am glandular, headachy and tired, badly needing the weekend to collapse in: the week has been a nasty succession of days in which I wake up feeling OK, but become progressively more feeble and headachy as the day wears on, ending with helpless horizontality in front of the TV in the evenings. Alias Season 5 is only marginally helping, the bastards have just offed Vaughn. I like Vaughn - he was the first TV character crush I ever had that suggested I might be getting over the bad boy thing. Fortunately this is Alias, so I don't actually believe he's dead. Also, the blonde computer-geek replacement to pregnant!Sidney is annoying and unconvincing as a geek, she's clearly an airhead.

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I find a need for semicolons. I use it for both the uses mentioned here, but mostly for the first use - to seperate items whose constituents contain commas themselves.

I've mostly weaned myself off parenthesis, and my writing style is better for it.

[starmadeshadow.livejournal.com]

Yay! for semicolons, and weekends.There should be more of them.

Apparently my thesis result is back from the Committee of Assessors, and now has to be signed off by the Chairman of Something or Other. Sigh. Do you think you and wolverine_nun could implement the ninja-cat-burglar strategy, please? Otherwise I don't believe that I'm ever going to hear the results; they're going to keep finding new people who have to ratify them...

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Fractal admin. It happens. Shall fire up the ol' ninja outfit forthwith. Strength! the few days before you know are horrible, but the relief at finally finding out is concomitantly enormous. I have champagne confidently chilling in the 'fridge, just so you know.

[origamitiger.livejournal.com]

I think your undergrads have stolen my commas, that is one of my worst habits, long sentances and no commas.

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

Hope the weekend does wonders for your glandular wotsits etc & you find yourself reinvigorated by Sunday lunchtime, if not earlier.

I find a similar use for semicolons to Strawberryfrog. I also find my writing is better for being gone through with a blue pencil.

Besides, & I suppose I should ask Mr Vonnegut this one, what's wrong with having received an education? Apart from the fact that too many people seem to go through the system & not do so.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

what's wrong with having received an education?

*grin*. An extremely valid point, madam!

and thank you for the glandular wishes, appreciated. I think I may utilise a "down" weekend for some gentle dressmaking.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Surely calling a hermaphrodite "transvestite" is either redundant or oxymoronic? Semicolons aren't redundant: they are, as you point out, a nuanced alternative to the comma, full stop and/or colon. Semicolons aren't oxymoronic: they imply pause-then-go-on (not, say, stay stopped and stay moving). So I have to disagree with the otherwise esteemed Mr Vonnegut.

bronchitikat does, indeed, make an excellent point wrt education.

I use semicolons for both purposes referred to by strawberryfrog. They are useful to me. I like them. Almost as much as tha moon! (Warning: noisy.)