“First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” – Vonnegut
There’s something overweeningly legalistic
about our small friend, the semi-colon.
Unlike the comma, who’s sort of joker, mystic,
striker, stammerer, hedge better all rolled in one,
we know just who the semi-colon is
and the dreary purpose he serves, which ain’t so fun.
He inserts himself, very sure that it’s his biz
to apportion each utterance’s run
into knotted cords that carefully demarcate
this subject and its predicate from the next two,
and so semantically arbitrate
a jumble of words that otherwise might vex you.
The semi-colon imposes its rule of law
there, wherever clarity begs rescue.
It makes way for the comma - our cool little claw.
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