Kurt Vonnegut called the marks "transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing." Hemingway and Chandler and Stephen King, said [Ben] McIntyre, "wouldn't be seen dead in a ditch with a semi-colon (though Truman Capote might). Real men, goes the unwritten rule of American punctuation, don't use semi-colons."
Well, I use and revere the semicolon, and I am certainly a real man, as any of my concubines will attest (the fact that I hold their green cards in no way influences the level of their adulation). I drink real scotch and scar my face with a real razor blade every morning. I avoid manscaping on principle. I will die early of a heart attack. Who could deny my manliness, even if I engage in the punctuation that dare not speak its name?
The article goes on with a lot of blather about semicolons representing nuance, while Americans want things straight up and black and white. The truth is that American fiction writers have always disliked semicolons in fiction. Non-fiction writers are not held to the same standard. European and Latin American fiction writers use various and sundry punctuation schemes that send your average American running for the latest Jackie Collins novel.
Which makes me wonder, can female authors get away with semicolons in their fiction? The semicolon can be very sexy in the hands of a lady writer.
And if you find this debate "exhilarating," then the posts on this blog must leave you positively breathless.
