Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark by Cecelia Watson

A good dictionary is descriptive, and we turn to it to see how words are actually used. On the other hand, grammar books are prescriptive and often proscriptive. We look there for the rules of writing.  We look there for the rules of writing. There simply has to be some conventionality in writing otherwise readers would be constantly trying to learn some new scheme of communication.  The problem with the semicolon is that there seems to be little agreement even among grammarians on how it should be used. The confusion over leads some writers to avoid the semicolon altogether.  Cecelia Watson argues that when used effectively the semicolon is an important, maybe even necessary tool of good writing.  Watson reviews the evidence from several writers, but the quoted passage from Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail proves her point.  MLK writes to the white preachers who advise him to slow down his efforts and to wait for change. In a truly astounding sentence, he cites example after example of the daily indignities suffered under racial apartheid.  Each clause is a shameful instance of humiliation and injustice and each powerful statement is separated by semicolon after semicolon like a drumbeat. This is mimesis at its best: the sentence makes the reader wait and wait while the long listing of travesties pound away until the conclusion—”then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” 

Cecelia Watson doesn’t choose sides in grammar wars over the semicolon or give her own rule but argues for good sense in writing rather than strict laws of writing.  In fact, she thinks a grammar scolding is just an ad hominem attack in disguise, a technique of one-up-manship.   It is much like the silly battles over the oxford comma.  Best to use it when necessary to avoid confusion, otherwise it doesn’t matter.

It’s amazing that there is so much to argue about in a point of punctuation.  There has been not one, but several court battles over the use of a semicolon in a law.  Cecelia Watson has written a whole book about a punctuation mark; it is a good book; it is readable; and it is marvelously wise.