[W]hatever one’s personal feelings about semicolons, some people don’t use them because they never learned how.
In fact, when Mr. Neches was informed by a supervisor that a reporter was inquiring about who was responsible for the semicolon, he was concerned.
“I thought at first somebody was complaining,” he said.
From “Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location” by Sam Roberts, New York Times, 2/18/08.
I am a big fan of the semicolon, myself; it’s an extremely useful punctuation mark.
(Thanks, Rob!)
Photo: laserColon laserSemiColon by Andrew Plumb / ClothBot; some rights reserved.
Semicolons are kind of cute, but colons worry me a little:(
I find colons to be overused: many people employ them where semicolons would be more appropriate.
[…] I say! A subterranean semicolon! […]