Punctuation
So earlier today I took a break from catching up on my e-mail. There were sounds of intense tickling happening in Sarah’s bedroom, and Oot was doing one of his best laughs: sort of this helpless throaty chortle that means you’ve *really* got him going.
I don’t know if Sarah realizes, but he gets that laugh from her. When something happens that strikes Sarah as really funny, she does this deep, throaty laugh. It’s like the sound a donkey would make if it was suddenly turned into an cartoon ster...
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Darren
(last edited Apr 07, 2013 05:34PM)
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Apr 07, 2013 05:33PM
Neil Gaiman uses semicolons. If he's an exemplar of how wankers write, please let me be a wanker.
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Patrick gave me a cold stare. "You used a semicolon," he said, eyes narrowing in rage. "It's making me stupid."And for the record, I agree with you.
;_;^The perfect emoticon for this discussion.
Tad wrote: ";_;^The perfect emoticon for this discussion."
agreed.
I was having a conversation about this the other day.I said, that I had never used a semicolon, in a sentence & couldn't remember (40 years since leaving education) how!
Now I have the answer & will sleep well again tonight!
Mucho grassy arse...
Hi Pat,You're the second person I've heard make this comment that people don't speak in semicolons. Can you explain that? When I have a character write a letter I generally don't use semicolons because I assume the character wouldn't, but not using semicolons in speech seems strange to me. Why not use them? They're correct, and you're not trying to exactly replicate people's speech patterns by throwing in random commas, ums, likes, and ungrammatical digressions in every sentence, nor are you writing things phonetically to show regional accents. So what's the problem with using the proper grammatical marks to indicate what the person's speech intends?
I'll be hunting down each and every semicolon in your next book Pat, and I'll send you the number, you can count on that :)
Semicolons are cool. Dashes are for when you're interrupting (so not applicable for this instance). I love ellipses!"But that’s a comma splice. I’m not opposed to them entirely, I’m no slave to grammar." I love this line!
:-)
I like what Vonnegut said about semicolons: "All they do is show you've been to college."
That's not all Vonnegut said about them. The full quote is much more fun:“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”
Only an author/professor would turn a sexy moment into a punctuation essay Good illustration though...
