Semicolons bring the drama; that’s why I love them

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":6.9,"text":"The writer is a science commentator"}],[{"start":9.38,"text":"The slow demise of the semicolon is devastating; there is no punctuation mark quite like it. According to research commissioned by the language-learning platform Babbel, its usage in British English books has slipped since 2000, from once every 205 words to once every 390 words."}],[{"start":36.57,"text":"Semicolons, thought to have been first used in 1494 by the Italian scholar and printer Aldus Pius Manutius the Elder, are forever damned by writer Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to avoid them. “All they do is show you’ve been to college,” he wrote. If scribblers are wary of looking pretentious, they are even more scared of looking witless: a Babbel student survey suggested that more than half did not know how to use the mark."}],[{"start":67.92,"text":"Forget the haters and doubters; this under-appreciated punctuation mark is a writer’s friend, beloved of Charles Dickens, Henry James and Virginia Woolf. The semicolon — a comma with a full stop for a hat, and sometimes called a super-comma — can sashay into prose and transform it in a way that a full stop, comma or even a dash cannot."}],[{"start":93.26,"text":"At its most practical, the semicolon is a useful way of separating items on a comma-heavy list, such as the frontrunners for a Nobel Prize, bestowed annually; climate tipping points, which we should all worry about; the side-effects, both mild and serious, of a new drug."}],[{"start":114.71000000000001,"text":"In today’s permissive punctuation landscape, one could probably get away with commas throughout but, in long sentences that contain lots of elements, this can quickly descend, if left unchecked, into comma carnage. In science writing, clarity is key — and it should be the novel idea under discussion, not a thicket of punctuation, that stops readers in their tracks."}],[{"start":144.8,"text":"But the semicolon’s real power lies elsewhere. Sometimes, a writer wants to juxtapose two related ideas, each of which could be a sentence in its own right but which, when married by a semicolon, become a thing of lyrical beauty. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “indicating a pause, typically between two main clauses, that is more pronounced than that indicated by a comma”. A comma brings a pause; a semicolon brings the drama."}],[{"start":181.14000000000001,"text":"Sometimes, as with the opening line of this column, a full stop at the end of the first clause would be too final. Yes, the decline of the semicolon is devastating — but only in a particular way, illustrated by the semicolon and clause that follows. This structure delivers a sense of context, impact and rhythm that a comma could not have mustered. Plus, to me, a comma just looks wrong."}],[{"start":212.72000000000003,"text":"Perhaps there is another reason, besides unfamiliarity, for the semicolon falling out of favour. As neither full stop nor comma, it symbolises a nuance that is disappearing in a polarised world. I cannot recall President Donald Trump using the mark in his ramblings on Truth Social, despite some ferociously long sentences. His opinions are so trenchant that not even a full stop always cuts the mustard as a sign-off. Instead, we are pummelled DAILY by random CAPS and EXCLAMATION marks, described by commentator Adam Gabbatt as the “messaging style of an elderly relative in a group chat”."}],[{"start":256.16,"text":"Elsewhere, brevity is the enemy of the semicolon. Emojis are also encroaching on its territory by providing pictorial drama.   "}],[{"start":267.89000000000004,"text":"I cannot recall how I came to worship the semicolon; a lifetime of reading has, so to speak, left a mark. But be warned: once converted, there is no going back. My recent column on sinking cities was, it turns out, itself buckling under the weight of nine semicolons. That confirms the view of Lynne Truss, author of the punctuation guide Eats, Shoots & Leaves, that semicolons can be “dangerously habit-forming”. The next stage, Truss cautions, comes when aficionados turn into “embarrassments to their families and friends”."}],[{"start":310.4200000000001,"text":"Ha, too late for that! My secret is out; I might yet come to regret it."}],[{"start":324.7600000000001,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftmailbox.cn/album/a_1748410546_6814.mp3"}