Could I ever truly fall in love with someone who didn’t use correct punctuation? With someone who, for instance, would write “it’s” when they really mean “its”, even in a hurried text message? Or who would be incapable of writing a sentence that didn’t end in an exclamation mark? Or who might run several thoughts into one, avoiding punctuation altogether?
I ask this question, not merely to prove my advancing age, but to ask whether what I once saw as an impediment to romantic attachment really matters any more. In the modern world of communication, peppered with neologisms, elisions, abbreviations and emojis, who really cares about punctuation?
Well, from the frontiers of grammatical rectitude comes a study this week which shows that some people really do bother about such matters. The semicolon is, like the red squirrel, facing extinction, and this recherché instrument of punctuation, identified by Abraham Lincoln as a “useful little chap”, is now rarely seen among British academic works.
According to research undertaken by Lisa McLendon, author of The Perfect English Grammar Workbook, 67 per cent of British students rarely or never use a semicolon, and only 11 per cent use it frequently. Furthermore, in books written in English in 2000, it appeared once in every 205 words; today it is down to one in every 390 (note the perfect use of the semicolon there).
I know that this might be the most inconsequential piece of information you’ve learned today. But it’s rather like lamenting the decline of politeness or bespoke suiting; we may all think we are too busy and important to pay attention to the subtleties and delicacies of contemporary life, but we ignore these minor details at our peril.
Punctuation, like punctuality, is manners. As Lynne Truss, the Eats, Shoots and Leaves author and doyenne of these matters, explains: “Punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop.” Those little dots and squiggles are what help people understand what you’re trying to say, and, without such conventions, you leave the reader to find their own way.
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The Oxford comma (a great favourite of mine, as the previous sentence illustrates) has already fallen into disrepair, and now the semicolon is on the endangered list. It won’t be long, judging by some of the missives I receive from people much younger than I, that the full stop is next on the chopping block.
“I hope your well, please can you let me know when your free to talk, I have some important information to share,” read an unprompted email I opened the other day, and this is rather typical of such communications, containing a wealth of grammatical solecisms, and characterised by the unintended Joyceian stream of consciousness technique. I can’t imagine anyone reading that and not closing the email immediately, thus identifying the business case for good grammar and punctuation.
The counterargument, of course, is that I knew exactly what this correspondent was saying, so what’s the problem? Why let my practised pedantry stand in the way? Am I just being an old fart?
The answer to the last question is: yes, always. But caring about grammar and punctuation is more than just being a pedant. It’s about making yourself understood – the difference between “a woman without her man is nothing” and “a woman: without her, man is nothing” – thereby showing the reader a required courtesy.
So I do, unashamedly, care about the decline of the semicolon. A former editor of mine once said that my attitude to a piece of journalism was to start with a big bag of semicolons and sprinkle them liberally throughout. I hope you appreciate my restraint here; only three are used in 655 words.
I note, however, that it’s still way above the current national average, so I’m pleased to be doing my bit for the preservation of this vestige of English language heritage.
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