Not Half-Assed: A Defense of the Semicolon

"The semicolon," an editor at The Washington Post once wrote in a misguided guide to good writing, "is an ugly bastard, and I try to avoid it," period. Perhaps he was misled by its name, which—comprised of the diminishing prefix semi- and the unfortunately denominated colon (a combination to which our title makes candid reference)—is rather ugly.

A recent article (via Arts & Letters Daily) explores the origins and issues of this strange prejudice, largely American, against our favorite punctuation mark. Falling somewhere between the comma and the period, the semicolon is rarely mandated, almost always discretionary; its employment a matter more of nuance than of necessity. This may render it superfluous, in the eyes of some, but its adept usage for that reason has become a subtle measure by which to distinguish the more or less literate, say, from the merely alphabetic.

If the semicolon really were an ugly bastard in any case its injunction in the field of journalism would not be as pressing, to employ a useful analogy, as the injunction against sexual harassment in the work place. That such a rule is not only in place but carefully observed signals that the semicolon is, to the contrary, a rather sexy bastard and requires preservation from the paws of the unscrupulous and miseducated.

"The most common abuse of the semicolon, at least in journalism," explains Michael Kinsley, the former editor of the New Republic (where he instituted the injunction against semicolons), "is to imply a relationship between two statements without having to make clear what that relationship is." Yes, precisely. But what is exceptionable in news writing can be exceptional in other contexts.

The most popular French writer of our day, Michel Houellebecq, has proclaimed that he has no literary style other than "to make harmless statements the juxtaposition of which produces an absurd effect." He singles out this sentence in particular from The Elementary Particles: "He could no longer remember his last erection; he waited for the storm." And this one:

L’éternité de l’enfance est une éternité brève, mais il ne le sait pas encore ; le paysage défile.

[The eternity of childhood is a brief eternity, but he does not know it yet; the landscape rolls on.]

"In those situations," comments Houellebecq, "I notice I often use the semicolon. I say 'absurdity' only out of politeness actually; I would prefer that this be seen as poetry."

As at least one critic points out, Kafka's absurd juxtaposition in his journal entry of 2 August 1914 is the model here: "Germany declared war on Russia. Swimming in the afternoon." (Of course this minimalist 'style,' the critic notes, can quickly descend into the merely ridiculous, of the type: "I get hard; it rains.")

In Houellebecq's latest novel, The Possibility of an Island, one finds this sentence: "Life begins at the age of fifty, it's true; except that it ends at forty." Absurd, certainly; but not entirely ridiculous. I refer not to the statement itself but its structure. What it presents is the contradiction of dialectic, competing and cancelling views, articulated at the balancing point-virgule. Not only is the semicolon among the most literary of punctuation marks, it is perhaps the most philosophical; its very existence a poke in the face of self-satisfied Truth.

In its embrace of nuance and ambiguity the semicolon may appear precious and fey; "pretentious, even poncy." In a word, European. Today's world, we are told, requires muscular, emphatic language, unencumbered by such complications. Yet however in disfavor it may be at the moment, the semicolon will never disappear. Indeed it will only gain in allure as it becomes more and more popularly despised and goes unrecognized as anything more than a winking smiley amongst the cretinously stupid youth.