I like semicolons.
I can actually use them correctly; many people can't. Unfortunately, those who cannot use it correctly ruin it for everyone. If you scour the blogs, you can probably find that many have at least one incorrect or unnecessary semicolon. Nothing against bloggers, they’re a good example of the average American and their literary knowledge.
Semicolons are also overused; they are used a lot & are rarely needed. A lot of the times people use semicolons, it is purely in instances to show "hey, I can use a semicolon". Because it is so often misused and overused, it is almost never used in a necessary fashion.
Unfortunately, its one usage where it is absolutely necessary is a very uncommon format. This is when they are between items in a series, acting like serial commas (the commas you write when you are listing things, places, & ideas). It would be something like:
"There were three travelers alongside of me: Thor, the god of Thunder; Elrond, Lord of Rivendell; and Cthulhu, high priest to the Great Old Ones."
I know what you must be thinking: Where the hell is this party of travelers going? I know; it was a crazy day. But the point is this is the only usage of semicolons where it is necessary. According to Wikipedia (and this is sourced), it’s the most common usage of the. This may be true for academia, but this is certainly not the case for the general population. Heck, when most of us write, we rarely come across this situation.
Going by reading blogs, and even news articles, the most common usage is the least useful one; it’s where the semicolon connects two independent clauses that are related (i.e. my usage at the beginning). While technically correct, it’s usually pointless; it’s the most common because people use to show they can use it. In layman's terms, an independent clause is a complete sentence that is "independent" from any other, and those generally end in a period. Semicolon usage here can help the flow with poetry or literary essays. Outside of that usage, it’s just a way of making it look fancy & at that point, why don't you just resort to Papyrus font.
The last usage is similar; it connects 2 independent clauses by using a transitional word/phrase. Example:
"I wrote this blog post about semicolon usage; however most people will still overuse them even after reading this"
This usage is almost strictly used by academic papers & personally, I think it’s just as useless as the middle one. It’s also seems like trying and show you can use the semicolon.
The semicolon is wonderful; unfortunately it has become a mainstay in pseudo-intellectualism. People use it to seem like they are being smart. I am not saying you shouldn't use it if you want to be fancy, but why corrupt the semicolon with overuse? If you want to seem fancy, why not use a "fancy" font like Brush Script of Papyrus, both of which are already fonts who have sold themselves out & are overused by people wanting to seem smart. Better yet, use Comic Sans!
(Disclaimer: some may want to comment that there seem to be a few unnecessary semicolons. It’s called Ironic humor people!)
No comments:
Post a Comment