A Dash of Style (8 page)

Edgar Allan Poe used the semicolon often and with great skill. Consider this excerpt from his story "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall":

His feet, of course, could not be seen at all. His hands were enormously large. His hair was gray, and collected into a queue behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and inflammatory; his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and cheeks, although wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and double; but of ears of any kind there was not a semblance to be discovered upon any portion of his head.

The semicolons here are used well not only sentence to sentence but also in context of the paragraph. Poe begins with complete, simple sentences, using only commas and periods, as he describes the man's feet, hands, and hair. But as he switches to describing the man's face, he switches to semicolons. This is not by chance. The pace increases as he does, as if he's revving up in his description of this man, racing toward a conclusion. It enables us to take in this man's entire face at once, as one grand unit (as opposed to the feet, hands, and hair, which are given their own sentences).

Here's another example, perhaps one of the most famous in literature. This comes from the opening paragraph of Melville's
Moby-Dick.
Melville relied heavily on the semicolon to create
Moby-Dick,
and there has been some debate over whether he used it properly or not. Some of his usages are certainly questionable. But this one is not:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

This single sentence encapsulates the entire rationale behind the book, behind "Ishmael's" taking the adventure he does. Although it's technically not advisable, Melville could have used commas here, but if he had, the pauses would not have been as long, and the reader wouldn't have had the opportunity to digest each thought. Or he could have, alternately, used periods; but doing so would have made the reader pause
too
long, and not digest all of this as a single idea. Semicolons allowed the reader to pause and also created tension, capturing "Ishmael's" own tension, his own feeling of building restlessness and need to get on board a ship.

"Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the toad ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath."

— Lewis Thomas

DANGER OF OVERUSE AND MISUSE

The semicolon tends to be underused because many writers don't know how to use it well. They have some notion of its function, but not an exact idea, and when they take their first tentative steps toward using it, they tend to do so incorrectly. Compounding the problem is that placement of the semicolon, like the comma, is somewhat up for debate, and in many circumstances one could just as easily argue for its omission.

There are, however, some instances when the semicolon is clearly misused. The most common:

• The semicolon should never be used to link two sentences unless they are closely related. For example, this could work:

The police station was close to his house; he would have to be careful.

But this could not:

The police station was close to his house; he needed to do his laundry soon.

When using a semicolon, you must always ask yourself if the two sentences are closely linked. If not, omit the semicolon. Even if two sentences are related, in most cases it's preferable
not
to link them with a semicolon. Sometimes thoughts need to stand on their own, and are better digested separately. This is especially true if the reader needs time to ponder each thought.

• Sometimes sentences linked by semicolons are
too
closely related —in other words, sometimes a semicolon is used when merely a comma will do. For example, this sentence:

The gardeners worked all day; their machines blared all the time.

should more likely be:

The gardeners worked all day, their machines blaring all the time.

There is no question a pause is needed between these two clauses—the issue is how strong that pause needs to be. In this case, the clauses are too closely linked and it's the comma's job (which also mandates minor word changes). This especially holds true when dealing with a series of short sentences.

• In most cases, avoid linking two longer (or independent) sentences with a semicolon. The semicolon allows a fuller, more complex thought, but when that thought is already full (or independent), you can overburden it by tacking on yet another thought. Periods serve their function well, which is to allow separation between thoughts. You don't want a semicolon to break down that barrier unless there is an important reason for doing so. For example, here are two complete sentences:

My neighbor's fence was purple and hideous and fell apart every winter, encroaching on my property. She had built it with her own hands, she constantly reminded me.

These two sentences each convey a lot on their own, and should not be connected, as they are here:

My neighbor's fence was purple and hideous and fell apart every winter, encroaching on my property; she had built it with her own hands, she constantly reminded me.

This overwhelms the reader. Although technically this works, in reality it makes the single thought too cumbersome for most readers, makes it harder to fully digest each idea. Sometimes separation is warranted.

• Once you get into the semicolon habit, it can become too easy to link everything: you can become a semicolon junkie. There is a real danger of becoming too trigger happy with semicolons, of inserting them when not truly needed. Given the fact that nearly any two (related) complete sentences can be linked, the potential for using semicolons is limitless. Once a writer starts to use the semicolon regularly, it can become hard to stop, and he may never look at a pair of sentences the same way again. Consider:

The telephone wire was down again; the phone company had told me it would be up by this morning; once again, bad information; I wouldn't let them get away with it this time.

Linking like this allows you to get away with half thoughts — instead of fully developing a single thought—and can overwhelm the style of a text. You must remember that periods and commas serve their function well.

The other problem with overusing semicolons is that it can create a work that feels overly formal. The semicolon is a rather sophisticated punctuation mark and if overdone it will feel as if you're showing off, or being elitist. "Good stylists try to avoid [the semicolon] as too formal: decked out, as it were, in a starched shirt and a black suit," says Rene J. Cappon says in
The Associated Press Guide to Punctuation.
That doesn't mean it can't be used—it just should be reserved for the right occasion.

• Sentences have beginnings, middles, and ends. When semicolons are overused, the natural arc and rhythm of a sentence can be lost. For example, this sentence stands well on its own:

The sun lit up the wall, and I shielded my eyes from the glare.

But if you connect it with semicolons:

The sun lit up the wall; I shielded my eyes from the glare.

While acceptable, it isn't quite as smooth. It feels more like one divided thought than two distinct thoughts. Neither clause feels as if it naturally rises and falls.

• Periods are effective at creating a bang, especially at the end of short sentences. Semicolons, though, rarely can, since they don't offer a full stop. And sometimes this "bang" effect is needed. For example, here we don't feel the impact of the final sentence:

The bus let me off at the wrong stop for the third time that week; it won't happen again.

But when we take away the semicolon:

The bus let me off at the wrong stop for the third time that week. It won't happen again.

We now feel the desired effect. As you can see, in the former example, the semicolon actually detracted from the punch.

"I have been told that the dying words of one famous 20th century writer were. I should have used fewer-semicolons."'

— LYNEE TRUSS, Ea
ts
.
Sho
ots & Leaves

CONTEXT

More so than any punctuation mark, the semicolon is designed to help the surrounding punctuation. It is the ultimate team player, its very existence relative to others. Thus context must always be carefully considered when employing the semicolon. A few circumstances to consider:

• A semicolon can be called in when a comma is not enough. There are times when a comma is already used too much in one sentence, when it can't do its job effectively anymore. There are also times when multiple thoughts in a sentence need more separation than merely a comma, need more time and space to be digested. But a period is sometimes too strong, provides too much separation. The semicolon can step in and save the day, allow a more substantial pause while not severing thoughts completely. For example, Washington Irving used the semicolon heavily and well in his story "Rip Van Winkle":

In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else; the rain always made a

point of setting in just as he had some out-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood.

Notice how using the semicolon enables the reader to take in such a long, full image, yet at the same time allows the reader some time to pause between these images, allows more breathing room than if there had merely been commas. Thanks to the semicolons, we can take in the image of the decrepit condition of his farm at once, making its impact all the more powerful.

• The semicolon can provide clarity in a sentence plagued by commas. When too many commas are on the scene, a sentence can become confusing; a semicolon can step in and divide the clauses, bringing clarity back to the sentence. As Lynne Truss says in
Eats, Shoots & Leaves,
the semicolon "performs the duties of a kind of Special Policeman in the event of comma fights." Consider:

I wanted the shovel and the rake, the pitchfork she could keep.

I wanted the shovel and the rake; the pitchfork she could keep.

In the former example, it is hard to tell where one thought ends and another begins, while in the latter it's clear.

• Sometimes a period needs the help of a semicolon, too. There comes a point when a period loses its effectiveness, when a series of short sentences simply can't bear another one. A comma won't always be able to help, especially if there are numerous self-contained sentences. Consider:

The barbecue was going fine until my father-in-law arrived. Within five minutes he was telling me how to cook. When to flip. What kind of meat to use. I could kill him.

There are too many periods here, giving the text a choppy feel (unless the author is trying to create an extremely stylized text). Commas could be brought in, but they wouldn't provide long enough pauses to hammer each point home. Thus, the semicolon:

The barbecue was going fine until my father-in-law arrived. Within five minutes he was telling me how to cook; when to flip; what kind of meat to use. I could kill him.

The semicolon not only nicely connects these short sentences, but also allows the last sentence to stand out from the others. The period is able to take a long, well-deserved rest, and then once again exert its power.

Using a semicolon before a period, particularly in a longer sentence, can also help restore the bang to the period. For example:

You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.

This comes from Ford Madox Ford's novel
The Good Soldier.
By placing the semicolon where he does, we feel the impact of the final period, an impact we would not have felt otherwise. Notice also the wonderful contrast between the long clause preceding the semicolon and the short one following it, which makes each stand out. Notice also how he varies his punctuation throughout, beginning with two short sentences, and avoiding commas in the first part of the third sentence. Each of these choices mirrors the intent of the content.