I have seen the eternal footman...
Sep. 18th, 2005 05:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksAn interesting article in yesterday's FT magazine on the semi-colon and how the Americans hate it. I'll admit that I have never noticed that Americans hated it. Maybe they do.
It made me think about writing on how I write, or why I canwrite. Then I thought that it would be too egotistical, even for me. Then I thought, who cares?
Much of writing is craft. Having a reasonable vocabulary is useful. Knowing how sentences should be put together is vital. Being willing to break those rules is also essential. Possessing a logical brain is an underestimated attribute. You have to be able to read something that you have just written and see it with a stranger's eye. "I know what I am trying to say, but have I actually said it?" This is the major fault in most non-writers. Punctuation is ignored and other errors are made, but the writer thinks that the meaning is obvious, when in many cases it is not obvious at all.
But proper writing goes beyond that. It enters the world of rhythm and tone. And here is where the semi-colon and the (alleged) American detestation of it comes into play. Take these sentences:
a) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead; and that was what drew my attention to him.
b) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead; that was what drew my attention to him.
c) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead. That was what drew my attention to him.
d) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead and that was what drew my attention to him.
e) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead, and that was what drew my attention to him.
None of these is technically wrong (although some might aver that (d) is faulty. We can leave that argument for another day). I suspect that many writers and readers wouldn't really care one way or the other which was used. I think that we would expect most modern American writers (particularly in the crime genre) to select (c). I would guess that if I were writing without thinking, then I would go for (e) (probably because my style is more influenced by Orwell than Hemingway). But I can imagine situations where I might use any of the above five. And, perhaps most importantly, when I am proof-reading my copy, I consider minutiae like this. To this extent, prose has a lot more in common with poetry than people think. The full stop is muscular, the comma more conspiratorial,while the semi-colon followed by an "and" leads the second part of the sentence to become more important than the first. If you want to turn your narrator into a ME ME ME character, just throw in a few semi-colons followed by "and"s.
It made me think about writing on how I write, or why I canwrite. Then I thought that it would be too egotistical, even for me. Then I thought, who cares?
Much of writing is craft. Having a reasonable vocabulary is useful. Knowing how sentences should be put together is vital. Being willing to break those rules is also essential. Possessing a logical brain is an underestimated attribute. You have to be able to read something that you have just written and see it with a stranger's eye. "I know what I am trying to say, but have I actually said it?" This is the major fault in most non-writers. Punctuation is ignored and other errors are made, but the writer thinks that the meaning is obvious, when in many cases it is not obvious at all.
But proper writing goes beyond that. It enters the world of rhythm and tone. And here is where the semi-colon and the (alleged) American detestation of it comes into play. Take these sentences:
a) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead; and that was what drew my attention to him.
b) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead; that was what drew my attention to him.
c) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead. That was what drew my attention to him.
d) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead and that was what drew my attention to him.
e) The man who came through the door was wearing a white raincoat and a seriously bruised forehead, and that was what drew my attention to him.
None of these is technically wrong (although some might aver that (d) is faulty. We can leave that argument for another day). I suspect that many writers and readers wouldn't really care one way or the other which was used. I think that we would expect most modern American writers (particularly in the crime genre) to select (c). I would guess that if I were writing without thinking, then I would go for (e) (probably because my style is more influenced by Orwell than Hemingway). But I can imagine situations where I might use any of the above five. And, perhaps most importantly, when I am proof-reading my copy, I consider minutiae like this. To this extent, prose has a lot more in common with poetry than people think. The full stop is muscular, the comma more conspiratorial,while the semi-colon followed by an "and" leads the second part of the sentence to become more important than the first. If you want to turn your narrator into a ME ME ME character, just throw in a few semi-colons followed by "and"s.
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Re: wearing bruised foreheads
Date: 2005-09-18 09:28 pm (UTC)(d) would only be used by someone, if they knew how to write, for some kind of dramatic effect. Since the first "and" has an entirely different use from the second "and", an Oxford comma is obviously called for. Without it the reader is led down a false trail from which he has to draw back. The impact of this construction would be to make the reader focus particularly on this sentence.
But this raises an interesting point. If the two "ands" were to have the same use, the first "and" should not be there; it should be replaced by a comma. Therefore, one could argue (although I would not) that the use of two "ands" in this way would indicate that the second "and" has a second function from the first.
The reason I would not argue this is that I have on occasion used the multiple "and" to indicate a rant, where the "ands" do have the same function.
But all this is rather irrelevantly pedantic (as,indeed, the whole post has been).