A Word Please
June Casagrande

"The semicolon is an ugly !$@*#!, and thus I tend to avoid it."

The first time I read this in the Bill Walsh book "Lapsing Into a Comma: A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print -- and How to Avoid Them," I was floored. Here was the chief of the Washington Post's business copy desk -- about the highest rank one can achieve in the copy-editing world -- so repulsed by a punctuation mark that he'd actually use a swear to describe it.

And he didn't disguise his swear, either. Right in his book, he used the seven-letter word that starts with a B and can impugn a mother, a fat and a child all at once.

How, I wondered, could the semicolon evoke that kind of vitriol?

Fast forward a few years to today, when I'm doing a lot of work copy editing articles by professional writers. Suddenly I get it -- get it to the max.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who aren't really sure how to use a semicolon and those who are very, very proud they do. Many are so proud, in fact, that they flaunt their knowledge at every opportunity, sickening copy editors at every rung of the journalistic ladder.

Consider this sample sentence, similar to stuff I see on a regular basis. "Johnny was tired; he went out. Once at the store, Macy's, he bought a shirt; checked out neckties, luggage and housewares; and pondered whether to call his girlfriend, Sarah."

Every one of those semicolons is used correctly. Yet every one should be taken out to the proverbial wood shed and introduced to the business end of a powerful firearm. There's no reason to use a single one of them, unless, of course, your goal is to show others that you know how. And in my book, the minute you start writing for your own benefit instead of for the reader's, you shouldn't be writing at all.

Semicolons are useful sometimes -- especially when they're used to manage unwieldy lists. But they should be a last resort after every effort has failed to make the list wieldy. "I visited Tampa, Fla; Bangor, Maine; Springfield, Ky; and Tupelo, Miss."

This example demonstrates one of the semicolon's two jobs -- one I like to call "ubercomma" but which "The Chicago Manual of Style" puts in clearer context: "The semicolon, stronger than a comma but weaker than a period, can assume either role."

So when you have a list with a bunch of commas already in it -- for example, separating city names from state names -- and you need something stronger to organize these things into larger groups, the semicolon is your friend. But remember, the operative word here is "need."

The semicolon's other job, which I hereby dub that of the "palsied period," is also best described by "Chicago": "Its most common use is between two independent clauses not joined by a conjunction."

One of "Chicago's" examples: "Joe had forgotten his reeds; therefore he could not play the oboe solo."

At this point, it's worth pausing to note the definition of "independent clause": one that can stand on its own as a sentence. In other words, this use of a semicolon may at times be desirable; it may at times be useful; it may always be justified; but it's never really necessary. You can always just use a period instead.

So will I swear off semicolons altogether? No. But that doesn't mean you should follow my lead unless, like me, your past dating history shows an extraordinary tolerance for "ugly !$@*#!s."
-- June Casagrande is author of "Grammar
Snobs Are Great Big Meanies." She can be reached
at JuneTCN@aol.com