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    Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark
    Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark
    Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark
    Audiobook3 hours

    Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark

    Written by Cecelia Watson

    Narrated by Pam Ward

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    A page-turning, existential romp through the life and times of the world’s most polarizing punctuation mark

    The semicolon. Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Orwell detest it. Herman Melville, Henry James, and Rebecca Solnit love it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care?

    In Semicolon, Cecelia Watson charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark, which for years was the trendiest one in the world of letters. But in the nineteenth century, as grammar books became all the rage, the rules of how we use language became both stricter and more confusing, with the semicolon a prime victim. Taking us on a breezy journey through a range of examples—from Milton’s manuscripts to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail” to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep—Watson reveals how traditional grammar rules make us less successful at communicating with each other than we’d think. Even the most die-hard grammar fanatics would be better served by tossing the rule books and learning a better way to engage with language.

    Through her rollicking biography of the semicolon, Watson writes a guide to grammar that explains why we don’t need guides at all, and refocuses our attention on the deepest, most primary value of language: true communication.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJul 30, 2019
    ISBN9780062917935
    Author

    Cecelia Watson

    Cecelia Watson is a historian and philosopher of science, and a teacher of writing and the humanities. She is currently on Bard College’s Faculty in Language and Thinking. Previously she was an American Council of Learned Societies New Faculty Fellow at Yale University, where she was also a fellow of the Whitney Center for the Humanities and was jointly appointed in the humanities and philosophy departments.

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    Reviews for Semicolon

    4/5

    76 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Fun and interesting. I enjoyed the stories at the beginning the most; was probably passively listening through the second half, but have recommended by this book to others as i think it is well written and fun history.
    • 4/5
      This book isn't really about the punctuation mark; rather, it's a response to grammar pedantry.
    • 3/5
      This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.--- Grammar, in our mythical narrative, is part of the good old days. People used to know grammar properly, we think, the same way they used to walk three miles to school uphill in the snow, and everyone was polite, and better looking and thin, and well dressed.** I want to stress that the above represents my guesswork on punctuation, Watson's is probably superior)WHAT'S SEMICOLON ABOUT?I'm going to go the lazy route and just lift from the Publisher's Website: A page-turning, existential romp through the life and times of the world’s most polarizing punctuation mark The semicolon. Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Orwell detest it. Herman Melville, Henry James, and Rebecca Solnit love it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care? In Semicolon, Cecelia Watson charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark, which for years was the trendiest one in the world of letters. But in the nineteenth century, as grammar books became all the rage, the rules of how we use language became both stricter and more confusing, with the semicolon a prime victim. Taking us on a breezy journey through a range of examples—from Milton’s manuscripts to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail” to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep—Watson reveals how traditional grammar rules make us less successful at communicating with each other than we’d think. Even the most die-hard grammar fanatics would be better served by tossing the rule books and learning a better way to engage with language. Through her rollicking biography of the semicolon, Watson writes a guide to grammar that explains why we don’t need guides at all, and refocuses our attention on the deepest, most primary value of language: true communication.PAM WARD'S NARRATIONWow...just wow. Ward throws more emotion, dynamic changes, dramatic changes, and overall oomph! into this narration than several novels I can name. It was so striking, so entertaining, and engaging that most of what I liked and noticed about this book can be attributed to her.Seriously, immediately before this, I'd listened to a book with multiple murders, other violent crimes, and a natural disaster threatening homes and livelihoods—Ward filled a book about a punctuation mark with more pathos and excitement than that.At least half the stars down there belong to her.SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT SEMICOLON? A grammar attack is, quite simply, an ad hominem attack that looks more legitimate becuase it's dressed up in a cap and gown.The fact that this ends up being about more than the semicolon is both a strength and a weakness.It's a strength because Watson simply doesn't have enough material to just talk about the semicolon for 200 pages (in the hardcover). The material was so wanting that she really had to spend a lot of time on the case about sales of alcohol in early 20th century Boson than it was worth.I thought her material on Raymond Chandler and Martin Luther King, Jr. was fantastic. The origins of the semicolon and the ups and downs of its usage pre-grammar textbooks were fascinating.But when she went off on grammar rules, how they get in the way of communication, can help shut down discourse, etc. The book suffered. Now, she was insightful, helpful, and persuasive on these points (and I say this as someone who reflexively comes down on the "prescriptivist" side in grammar debates). But when she did that, she walked away from "The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark," and it bugged me. If Watson was going to write something like Emmy J. Favilla's A World Without "Whom" or Gretchen McCulloch Because Internet, I'd be there in a heartbeat. (also, if she wanted to tackle punctuation beyond the semicolon like Shady Characters by Keith Houston, I'd be all for that) But for this book, she went too far afield for this reader's taste and lost a lot.At the end of the day—if you want a rousing celebration and examination of the winking half of an emoticon—or the mark's more illustrious use and history, this is the book to grab. I almost never recommend a particular format of a book, but you need to listen to at least a sample of Ward's narration.
    • 4/5
      I picked up this book in memory of my friend Khun Bob who took the time to use semicolons in his SMS messages. l, myself, am of the avoid at all cost persuasion. I enjoyed Cecelia Watson's scholarship but I wish that it were a bit more prescriptive amidst the historical Yes and No.
    • 5/5
      This little book is delightful. Yes, it's about the semicolon, how it was invented, how it was used, abused, changed in appreciation, scorned and celebrated. What I especially appreciated was her discussion of how various authors used the semicolon, including Raymond Chandler, Herman Melville, and Henry James. She also does a devastating takedown of David Foster Wallace concerning his teaching methods. Lots of footnotes, some of them very interesting, lots of bibliography if you like exploring further. It's about as un-nerdy as a book on punctuation could be, neither 'descriptive' nor 'prescriptive' in the linguistic sense, but more 'suggestive'; find out how a semicolon can serve you.
    • 4/5
      This little volume is exactly what the title says it is: a book about semicolons. Watson looks a bit at the history of the semicolon, where it came from and how its usage has changed over time; examines the ways in which various writers have used the semicolon; and tells some interesting stories about how ambiguous punctuation in written laws has had surprisingly big effects. But it's about more than that, too. Watson's central idea here involves changing how we think about grammar rules and the way we apply them. She's also not remotely shy about voicing plenty of other opinions on related subjects ranging from linguistic snobbery to the proper way to approach the interpretation of laws. It's all very thought-provoking, and Watson's writing is lively and fun to read. She picks great examples of other people's writing to talk about, too.All-in-all, it's much more interesting and entertaining than you might expect any book about semicolons to be, even if you're the kind of person who's interested in reading books about punctuation to begin with. (Which I am, obviously.) It's also gotten me to think a bit differently about semicolons. I confess, I've long felt reluctant to use them even when I've really wanted to, out of some sense that others would find them pretentious or distracting, but I'm remembering now how fond of them I once was and how useful they can actually be.
    • 4/5
      As a lifelong fan of the semicolon, this was a delightful book for me. It covers a lot of territory, efficiently: the origins of the semicolon; historical debates about the "rules" of grammar and whether such rules even make sense; snobbery in punctuation, and snobbery in general; the critical difference made by a semicolon, or its absence, in the interpretation of certain laws. And that's just getting started.

      The author hears language as a kind of music, rather than seeing it as something made or perfected by rules; and she describes how punctuation sets the tone, pace, and meaning of the music.

      Several great authors make their appearance in this book, including old favorites like Mark Twain, who could have written an iconoclastic, caustic book about punctuation himself.

      The best use of the semicolon that the author has seen turns out to be a searing passage from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

      And for my money, the highlight of the book is a short extended treatment of "Moby-Dick."
    • 5/5
      Daring to write about writing must feel like throwing down a guantlet to all types of reviewers, even more so when braving a topic the grammatical establshment considers central to the craft. Watson’s writing is precise, artistic and delightful. She covers the history of this controversial mark, from its origins in more expressive times, through the hey-day of grammatical rule-makers, to the modern tension between science and art. Watson’s examples, drawn from multiple literary and legal sources, are poignant, making this book as enjoyable as it is educational.
    • 4/5
      Very cunning! A book designed for grammar nerds,
      to explain to us why we shouldn’t be too picky about punctuation rules. It doesn’t treat punctuation in isolation, either. Everything is political, even punctuation. The parts about trying to teach grammar resonated with me too. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      How should one go about writing a pop-scientific book that is solely about the semicolon? Is it best to be bone dry and scientific, as with most dictionaries, or bone dry and severely funny, as with Benjamin Dreyer's "Dreyer's English"?

      Thankfully, Cecelia Watson approaches this nerdy subject with both clerical adroitness and humour, and she constructs all of this chronologically. From the start of her book:

      How did the semicolon, once regarded with admiration, come to seem so offensive, so unwieldy, to so many people? Asking this question might seem academic in all the worst ways: what practical value could there be in mulling punctuation, and in particular its history, when we have efficiently slim guidebooks like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and thick reference volumes like The Chicago Manual of Style to set straight our misplaced colons and commas? We have rules for this sort of thing! But rule-based punctuation guides are a relatively recent invention.

      Indeed, the beginning of the book is the beginnings—yes, plural—of grammar, and Watson pulls this off by being discreet and funny at the same time:

      Courts of law, too, were in a lather over how to deal with punctuation marks: a semicolon in an 1875 legal statute caused all of Boston to fly into a panic when courts opined that the semicolon meant that alcohol couldn’t be served past 11:00 P.M. (Bostonians, ever resourceful, devised some pretty clever ways to get drunk well into the wee hours until the statute was finally revised six years after it went into force.)

      That story brings the semicolon (and how people perceive it) to life; Watson's view on linguistic rules is both sane and open:

      I wouldn’t deny that there’s joy in knowing a set of grammar rules; there is always joy in mastery of some branch of knowledge. But there is much more joy in becoming a reader who can understand and explain how it is that a punctuation mark can create meaning in language that goes beyond just delineating the logical structure of a sentence.

      Watson's use of examples, both in terms of style and real-life legal wrangles, are illuminating, informative, scary, and funny. Here's one magnificent example of legal issues due to a missing semicolon (or, begrudgingly agreed, a rewrite):

      A particularly heart-wrenching case that was tried on the cusp of the Great Depression painfully illustrates the problems that can be caused by a missing semicolon. In 1927, two men were convicted of murder in New Jersey.

      The jury’s verdict and sentencing recommendation was written as follows: “We find the defendant, Salvatore Merra, guilty of murder in the first degree, and the defendant, Salvatore Rannelli, guilty of murder in the first degree and recommend life imprisonment at hard labor.”

      The judge interpreted the life imprisonment recommendation as applicable only to Rannelli, since that recommendation followed only the repetition of “guilty of murder in the first degree” after Rannelli’s name. Using this reasoning, the judge sentenced Salvatore Merra to death for the same crime.

      In an eleventh-hour appeal, Merra’s lawyer (and New Jersey senator) Alexander Simpson argued that the jury meant the life imprisonment recommendation to apply to both men—otherwise, the jurors would surely have used a semicolon to separate their verdict on Merra from their verdict on Rannelli, so that the verdict would have read: “We find the defendant, Salvatore Merra, guilty of murder in the first degree; and the defendant, Salvatore Rannelli, guilty of murder in the first degree and recommend life imprisonment at hard labor.”

      The prosecution, on the other hand, countered that the jury clearly intended for Merra to die.

      Watson goes through punctuation, grammar, and style by examining text and sayings by authors, for example, Irvine Welsh, Raymond Chandler, and Herman Melville.

      Speaking of the latter, "Moby-Dick" contains around 210,000 words and 4000 semicolons; one for every 52 words, of which Watson notes that "[t]he semicolons are Moby-Dick’s joints, allowing the novel the freedom of movement it needed to tour such a large and disparate collection of themes."

      There's a particularly wondrous dissing of David Foster Wallace, the author who is—by many white men—considered to be The Golden Child of the 21st century where language is concerned. Watson not only disses his "because"-form-of-logic stance on Standard written English, but also of his oft-failed grammar. It's fun to see, albeit a tad strange to see her rant go on for as long as it does.

      All in all, this is a fun book to read. Watson has chosen to balance stories of grammatical rules and real-life examples of how the semicolon has been used (and abused), framing it all in neat paragraphs that stand out, simply because they're valuable. If this is a sign of things to come from this author, I will keep eyes peeled.
    • 3/5
      I had forgotten I'd pre-ordered this, randomly, until it was delivered on my birthday! Not a title I would have chosen as a gift to myself, but interesting enough. I loved Lynn Truss' book on punctuation, and in my voluntary position as a dotter of i's and crosser of t's for a local journal, I'm usually pro-comma, anti-semicolon, so this is my type of grammar geekery.From the 'history' of the hybrid mark - Venice, 1494, in case anyone needs to know - to the legal and literary impact of the comma-cum-colon, Cecelia Watson looks at the past, present and future of the semicolon and the rigid rules of punctuation in general. 'How did the semicolon, once regarded with admiration, come to seem so offensive, so unwieldy to so many people?' she asks. Henry James and Herman Melville loved them (there are 4,000 semicolons in Moby Dick!), whereas Mark Twain hated having his punctuation corrected. Make of that what you will. Once popular in the 1800s, writers now view the semicolon with either derision or fear, mocking the mark because they don't know where to drop it. The fear might be well-deserved, however, as at least two court cases have hinged on the inclusion of a semicolon in a legal text.Watson's witty and irreverent study of the semicolon shifts into a bizarre defence of those who can versus those who mock, and the book is actually shorter than I thought, but I think I have more respect for the upgraded comma than I started with!