Life is no way to treat an animal. - KV
April 12th, 2008
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s death.
One thing I learned from his book, A Man Without Country, which I finished reading just days before his passing, is what he said about semicolons. Never use them. They are useless and the only people who use them (to connect two sentences, I assume) are pretentious and simply want to show off the fact that they know how to use a semicolon. Good to know. I haven’t used a semicolon in my writing since. Any writing I care about, anyway. I would like you to never use a semicolon ever again, either. I’m not sure that using a semicolon makes you pretentious or if using a semicolon is merely a symptom of pretense already in progress, but that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
6 Responses to “Life is no way to treat an animal. - KV”
By Martha on Apr 27, 2008
I use semicolons. I love semicolons. My students attempt to use them. Does that make me a bad person? I’m going to defend them the way that I defend my thesis to my advisor. It’s a stylistic choice. In fact one of my students told me that punctuation is a stylistic choice. Interesting.
By Tiffany on Apr 27, 2008
hm. he says that any punctuation is a stylistic choice? sounds like your student is ripe for lit mag fame. and no, that doesn’t make you a bad person. i guess we, too, will agree to disagree.
By Soma on May 17, 2008
Semicolons forever!
Not that my opinion does much to lessen the pretentiousness rep…
By Joe on May 28, 2008
I hate semi-colons; namely because I don’t know how to use them.
By Joe on May 28, 2008
Apparently I also hate commas.
By Joe on May 28, 2008
As well as other things involved in writing properly. (Especially after drinking wine).