“Reality may be simultaneous, but expository prose is linear”
from The Philosophy of Punctuation by Paul Robinson, author of Opera, Sex, and Other Vital Matters
A hard copy of this essay has been hanging around my desk for ages.
I’ve no idea how I first stumbled across it, but I remember that the title and first paragraph caught my attention somewhere and I pulled down a copy, meaning to read it on the subway or something.
Finally got around to reading it the other night and it certainly didn’t disappoint.
Robinson could be considered by some to have purist or intransigent leanings. I think he’s well aware of his own foibles and this candid self-knowledge is indeed part of the appeal of this piece.
His philosophy appeals to me as I recognize so many of my own weak uses in his catalogue of punctuation crimes. One of my favourite sections is the diatribe on semicolons:
“Periods and commas are lovely because they are simple.... if the undergraduate essays I see are representative, we are in the midst of an epidemic of semicolons. I suspect that the semicolon is so popular because it is the first fancy punctuation mark students learn of, and they assume that its frequent appearance will lend their writing a properly scholarly cast. Alas, they are only too right.
I was hoping Robinson would also pass comment of one of the laziest of punctuation marks, of which I confess to be a serial abuser: the ellipsis.
In email messages in particular, I frequently find myself tacking this sloppy cliff-hanger onto the end of even the longest sentences.
It’s as if I’m implying, with arch coolness, that my correspondent can easily fill in the remainder of the thought for themselves. The truth is that most of the time, of course, the ellipsis is dropped in there to save me the bother of constructing a fully-formed sentence.
Ellipses mirror my life. Deep-rooted procrastination aided and abetted by that certain frustrating inability to complete things. Takes me forever to get around to stuff, and I always seem to be leaving a loose end dangling somewhere. My epitaph should read: “Hang on, I’m nearly finished...”
from The Philosophy of Punctuation by Paul Robinson, author of Opera, Sex, and Other Vital Matters
A hard copy of this essay has been hanging around my desk for ages.
I’ve no idea how I first stumbled across it, but I remember that the title and first paragraph caught my attention somewhere and I pulled down a copy, meaning to read it on the subway or something.
Finally got around to reading it the other night and it certainly didn’t disappoint.
Robinson could be considered by some to have purist or intransigent leanings. I think he’s well aware of his own foibles and this candid self-knowledge is indeed part of the appeal of this piece.
His philosophy appeals to me as I recognize so many of my own weak uses in his catalogue of punctuation crimes. One of my favourite sections is the diatribe on semicolons:
“Periods and commas are lovely because they are simple.... if the undergraduate essays I see are representative, we are in the midst of an epidemic of semicolons. I suspect that the semicolon is so popular because it is the first fancy punctuation mark students learn of, and they assume that its frequent appearance will lend their writing a properly scholarly cast. Alas, they are only too right.
I was hoping Robinson would also pass comment of one of the laziest of punctuation marks, of which I confess to be a serial abuser: the ellipsis.
In email messages in particular, I frequently find myself tacking this sloppy cliff-hanger onto the end of even the longest sentences.
It’s as if I’m implying, with arch coolness, that my correspondent can easily fill in the remainder of the thought for themselves. The truth is that most of the time, of course, the ellipsis is dropped in there to save me the bother of constructing a fully-formed sentence.
Ellipses mirror my life. Deep-rooted procrastination aided and abetted by that certain frustrating inability to complete things. Takes me forever to get around to stuff, and I always seem to be leaving a loose end dangling somewhere. My epitaph should read: “Hang on, I’m nearly finished...”
