Death of the "point-virgule"?

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Author Message   Yvettep AALBC .com Platinum Poster Username: Yvettep Post Number: 3002 Registered: 01-2005 Rating:  Votes: 1 (Vote!) Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 06:23 pm:        ; ( Has modern life killed the semicolon? By Paul Collins When the Times of London reported in 1837 on two University of Paris law profs dueling with swords, the dispute wasn't over the fine points of the Napoleonic Code. It was over the point-virgule: the semicolon. "The one who contended that the passage in question ought to be concluded by a semicolon was wounded in the arm," noted the Times. "His adversary maintained that it should be a colon." French passions over the semicolon are running high once again. An April Fool's hoax this year by the online publication Rue89 claimed that the Nicolas Sarkozy government planned to demand "at least three semicolons per page in official administrative documents." Parliamentarian Benoist Apparu was in on the joke—"The disappearance of the semicolon in Eastern France is absolutely dramatic," he gamely proclaimed—and linguist Alain Rey (barely) kept a straight face for a video calling Frenchmen to arms. Reporters were taken in, since, like every great hoax, it was plausible enough to be true. Le Figaro has proclaimed, "The much-loved semicolon is in the process of disappearance; let us protect it," and there was even a brief attempt at a Committee for the Defense of the Semicolon—a modern update on the Anti-Comma League that France had back in 1934. French commentators blame the semicolon's decline on everything from "the modern need for speed" to the corrupting influence of English and its short, declarative sentences. It's a charge leveled for years stateside, too, with Sven Birkerts bemoaning the Internet's baleful influence on semicolons a decade ago. Has modern life killed the semicolon?... http://www.slate.com/id/2194087   Ferociouskitty Veteran Poster Username: Ferociouskitty Post Number: 255 Registered: 02-2008 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 06:44 pm:        Great article! Some highlights for me: Kurt Vonnegut once informed a Tufts University crowd that "All [semicolons] do is show that you've been to college." New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's favorite put-down for egghead bureaucrats who got in his way was "semicolon boy." ... In 1977 the NYPD speculated that "the killer [the Son of Sam] could be a freelance journalist" because of his "use of a semicolon" in his taunting letters. (Decades later, columnist Jimmy Breslin still marveled that "Berkowitz is the only murderer I ever heard of who knew how to use a semicolon.") Yours in nerdery...   Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 12344 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 10:50 pm:        I'm a great fan of the semi-colon! It has a certain subtlty that conveys the perfect impression of an after thought; the impact of a strong comma.