Henry Malthus » punctuation http://www.henrymalthus.com/blog Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:01:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 One for Jeremy http://www.henrymalthus.com/blog/2008/08/one-for-jeremy/ http://www.henrymalthus.com/blog/2008/08/one-for-jeremy/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:21:34 +0000 Henry http://www.henrymalthus.com/blog/?p=45 Sex and the semicolon at the Boston Globe.

Nevertheless, the semicolon has been suffering. Paul Collins, in a recent Slate article, cited a study showing "a stunning drop in semicolon usage between the 18th and 19th centuries, from 68.1 semicolons per thousand words to just 17.7."

You'd think a victory like that would satisfy the anti-semicolon crowd. But no, they keep worrying that those girly, prissy, hermaphroditic punctuation marks will somehow infect their sturdy prose. [...]

I am unashamedly a fan of the poor, under-utilised semicolon -- mostly just because I think it looks cool.

[via Arts & Letters Daily]

]]> http://www.henrymalthus.com/blog/2008/08/one-for-jeremy/feed/ 0 Celebrating the Semicolon http://www.henrymalthus.com/blog/2008/02/celebrating-the-semicolon/ http://www.henrymalthus.com/blog/2008/02/celebrating-the-semicolon/#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:02:00 +0000 Henry http://henrymblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/celebrating-the-semicolon/ Awesome little story in the New York Times:

Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location

by Sam Roberts

Semicolon sightings in the city are unusual but Neil Neches, a writer in the transit agency’s marketing and service information department, inserted one on a placard anyway.

Sadly, the semicolon is still going the way of the dodo...

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