Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark

by Cecelia Watson, Pam Ward (Narrator)

A page-turning, existential romp through the life and times of the world’s most polarizing punctuation mark

The semicolon. Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Orwell detest it. Herman Melville, Henry James, and Rebecca Solnit love it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care?

In Semicolon, Cecelia Watson charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark, which for years was the trendiest one in the world of letters. But in the nineteenth century, as grammar books became all the rage, the rules of how we use language became both stricter and more confusing, with the semicolon a prime victim. Taking us on a breezy journey through a range of examples—from Milton’s manuscripts to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail” to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep—Watson reveals how traditional grammar rules make us less successful at communicating with each other than we’d think. Even the most die-hard grammar fanatics would be better served by tossing the rule books and learning a better way to engage with language.

Through her rollicking biography of the semicolon, Watson writes a guide to grammar that explains why we don’t need guides at all, and refocuses our attention on the deepest, most primary value of true communication.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Writing, History, Linguistics, Audiobook, Reference

4 pages, Audible Audio

First published July 30, 2019

About the author

Cecelia is a historian and philosopher of science, and a teacher of writing and the humanities. She is currently part of Bard College’s Faculty in Language and Thinking. Previously she was an American Council of Learned Societies New Faculty Fellow at Yale University, where she was jointly appointed in the Humanities and Philosophy departments. Prior to that, she was a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and a scientific consultant for Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany.

She has a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John's College; and an M.A. in Philosophy and Ph.D. in Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, both from the University of Chicago.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Yes, this is an entire book about semicolons. If anything, I wanted it to be longer.

Terrific on the history and the extremely weird and frankly scary ways people have interacted with it, really interesting on the concept of punctuation in general. I loved the analyses of how it works in passages and would have liked twice as much of that. A really entertaining, absorbing read. On the semicolon.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cecelia Watson, self-professed member of the modern Grammar Police, takes readers on an interesting adventure in her exploration of the semicolon (;). While this may seem a dull and esoteric journey, Watson makes it highly entertaining and informative as she investigates the origin of this punctuation mark that has not only fallen into disrepute, but also become something that angers many readers. Created in the late 15th century in Italy, the semicolon was a special mark created by a printer to set apart a piece he was publishing from all others at the time. Its use remained stagnant until the 19th century, when it became more popular. There were no rules of English grammar or punctuation at the time, leading many to take up the effort to dictate to the general public how to write and how not to do so. This included demonstrating the semicolon’s use, but not always clearly defining the rules by which it could be used properly. The book continues with some mention of how this piece of punctuation cost many people their lives, as it was inserted into (or left out of) legal statutes in the United States. Watson explores how a single semicolon changes the interpretation of words to the point of sending a man to his death, while exonerating his willing accomplice. Watson then tackles how some modern authors have used semicolons to shape their writing, sometimes defying the generally accepted rules laid out in the aforementioned grammatical guides. The attentive reader will see just how useful and transformative the semicolon could be, allowing authors to take readers on adventures in a single sentence. This exploration shows how a single punctuation mark can be so subjective in its use and provide such a headache to the reader, while also serving to pace the prose on the printed page, while also posing the question of being pretentious or useful. It is not likely that the semicolon will gain its 19th century notoriety again, but I am happy that Cecelia Watson took the time to pen this piece and keep me on my toes as I learn. Recommended to those who hold onto their Grammar Police badge with vigour, as well as the reader who loves to learn about all things linguistic.

I remember seeing this book when it was newly published and wanted to get my hands on a copy. However, my excitement had it relegated to a shelf, as I had lots going on at the time and could not get to it. I am glad that I took the time to finally read this, as I did learn a great deal, even if I did not ascertain the rules by which I could (and should?) use the semicolon in my writing. I have survived well without using it and, truth be told, it ties me in knots to think about writing with it. Watson does a fabulous job keeping things light while not skimping on the information presented. Her approach is entertaining and the varied topics kept the momentum of the book moving at lightning speed. While this topic does not seem to evoke laughter and enjoyment, Watson did remarkably well and I would hope readers take a gamble with this one. A mix of long and short chapters, depending on the topic at hand, kept the story moving and the learning at a premium. Grammarians of the world...find me more books like this (or write them) and I vow to improve my writing.

Kudos, Madam Watson, for this great piece that has me cringing a little less at the semicolon.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who would have thought that a book about a punctuation mark could be so entrancing? If not for Alan's review, I don't think I would have ever come across this book, and it would have been a pity, because it was an absolutely fascinating read!

Semicolon was born in 1494 in Venice, and to this very day it sparked a lot of controversies. Kurt Vonnegut advised writers, "Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaprhodites representing absolutely nothing." For Donald Bartheleme it was "ugly, ugly as a tick on a dog's belly."

But its power cannot be ignored: "The semicolon represents a way to slow down, to stop, and to think; it measures time more meditatively[...]"

There are a lot of examples on how it changes how we perceive a certain phrase and its meaning, but I think the most representative is a fragment from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail". It's a very powerful one, it will give you goosebumps, and it's emphasized due to the use of semicolons.

The author dives into its history and usage, and it was mouth-gaping to read how many anymosities, law trials, tragic moments, heated emotions, but also some hilarious ones the semicolon created over time.

As the author said, it will change how you look at grammar from now on. I will certainly pay more attention to it when reading.

"By the time I had finished writing the story contained in these pages, I had changed everything about how I looked at grammar. I still love language, but I love it in a richer way. Not only did I became a better and more sensitive reader and a more capable teacher, I also became a better person. Perhaps that sounds like a fancifully hyperbolic claim - can changing our relationship with grammar really make us better human beings? By the end of rhis book, I hope to persuade you that reconsidering grammar rules will do exactly that, by refocusing us on the deepest, most primary value and purpose of language: true communication and openness to others."

Give it a try, you won't regret it. In case you're not convinced, below two articles might be more persuasive than me:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/com...

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you think that an entire book about the ‘semicolon’ is likely to be a stuffed-shirt of a read, think again. Cecelia Watson does an incredible job of illuminating the eccentricities of the English language. Her central argument is that the purpose of any language is ‘communication’, which also extends to empathy and understanding.

This is far more important than following any set of rules, or expecting any users of ‘your’ language to not only be aware of all of these rules, but to conform to them strictly. The end result is what David Foster Wallace referred to as Standard Written English (SWE), which other more cynical people have termed Standard White English:

Those of you readers who speak English as a first language, like I do, enjoy a remarkable privilege: we speak the most widely spoken language in all the world. This is a wonderful advantage for us; the pre-eminence of English does as much as aeroplanes and the Internet do to make the world small enough that we can skip across its circumference in ways both real and virtual that our grandparents wouldn’t have dreamed possible. At the same time, many native English speakers never experience what it’s like to struggle to communicate basic needs to a shop assistant; or to be lost on the underground, the air filled with indecipherable phonemes that offer no aid; or to be talked down to as though you’re an idiot by someone who has heard your foreign accent.

The best part of the book for me is when Watson takes a deep-dive into writers as diverse as Herman Melville, Irvine Welsh and Henry James. Interestingly, their use of the dreaded semicolon is often ungrammatical (those pesky rules again), but Watson explains exactly why these masters use this ‘wink of ink’ so brilliantly by analysing a select passage by each author.

I write and edit for a living, and therefore am the last person to explain any rules of grammar to anyone. Cecelia actually says the best way to learn a language is to read as much as possible, so that you absorb its structure and are able to manipulate it almost intuitively. I’ll add to this and say that if you want to appreciate the power and beauty of English as a language, and what can be unleashed if you dare to break any of its myriad byzantine grammar rules, is also to read as much poetry and experimental fiction as possible.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

The semicolon has to undoubtedly be the most divisive and misunderstood punctuation mark in history, closely followed by the Oxford comma. In Semicolon, Ms Watson discusses the history, use, misuse and powerful impact the semicolon can have on a person's writing. A famously tricky method of punctuation scares some, and hence why many shy away from even attempting to use it. But, here, the author shows just how simple and effective it can be.

The author has managed to make a rather dry topic quite lighthearted and entertaining through wit and humour that is interspersed throughout. It is clearly extensively researched as all the information seems to be sound, and it's actually pretty fascinating. Highly recommended to those who are sticklers for correct grammar and punctuation and those who wish to know more about the semicolon. Many thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC.

[Lata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on the reviews, I thought this book would be a bit more enjoyable. And though I liked it, I didn't like it as much as I was expecting to. It's well researched, with occasional moments of light humour about people arguing over grammar rules (because, really, fighting over grammar is too funny, except when it's not, as the author illustrates in a murder case in the US many years ago upon which a man's life hung). And though this book was about the semicolon (which has been in existence since 1494 (!!)) this book was more about writing, the meaning of text and how that can change based on how sentences are punctuated, and the importance of communicating.

[Niklas Pivic · Rating 4 out of 5]

How should one go about writing a pop-scientific book that is solely about the semicolon? Is it best to be bone dry and scientific, as with most dictionaries, or bone dry and severely funny, as with Benjamin Dreyer's "Dreyer's English"?

Thankfully, Cecelia Watson approaches this nerdy subject with both clerical adroitness and humour, and she constructs all of this chronologically. From the start of her book:

How did the semicolon, once regarded with admiration, come to seem so offensive, so unwieldy, to so many people? Asking this question might seem academic in all the worst ways: what practical value could there be in mulling punctuation, and in particular its history, when we have efficiently slim guidebooks like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and thick reference volumes like The Chicago Manual of Style to set straight our misplaced colons and commas? We have rules for this sort of thing! But rule-based punctuation guides are a relatively recent invention.

Indeed, the beginning of the book is the beginnings—yes, plural—of grammar, and Watson pulls this off by being discreet and funny at the same time:

Courts of law, too, were in a lather over how to deal with punctuation marks: a semicolon in an 1875 legal statute caused all of Boston to fly into a panic when courts opined that the semicolon meant that alcohol couldn’t be served past 11:00 P.M. (Bostonians, ever resourceful, devised some pretty clever ways to get drunk well into the wee hours until the statute was finally revised six years after it went into force.)

That story brings the semicolon (and how people perceive it) to life; Watson's view on linguistic rules is both sane and open:

I wouldn’t deny that there’s joy in knowing a set of grammar rules; there is always joy in mastery of some branch of knowledge. But there is much more joy in becoming a reader who can understand and explain how it is that a punctuation mark can create meaning in language that goes beyond just delineating the logical structure of a sentence.

Watson's use of examples, both in terms of style and real-life legal wrangles, are illuminating, informative, scary, and funny. Here's one magnificent example of legal issues due to a missing semicolon (or, begrudgingly agreed, a rewrite):

A particularly heart-wrenching case that was tried on the cusp of the Great Depression painfully illustrates the problems that can be caused by a missing semicolon. In 1927, two men were convicted of murder in New Jersey.

The jury’s verdict and sentencing recommendation was written as follows: “We find the defendant, Salvatore Merra, guilty of murder in the first degree, and the defendant, Salvatore Rannelli, guilty of murder in the first degree and recommend life imprisonment at hard labor.”

The judge interpreted the life imprisonment recommendation as applicable only to Rannelli, since that recommendation followed only the repetition of “guilty of murder in the first degree” after Rannelli’s name. Using this reasoning, the judge sentenced Salvatore Merra to death for the same crime.

In an eleventh-hour appeal, Merra’s lawyer (and New Jersey senator) Alexander Simpson argued that the jury meant the life imprisonment recommendation to apply to both men—otherwise, the jurors would surely have used a semicolon to separate their verdict on Merra from their verdict on Rannelli, so that the verdict would have read: “We find the defendant, Salvatore Merra, guilty of murder in the first degree; and the defendant, Salvatore Rannelli, guilty of murder in the first degree and recommend life imprisonment at hard labor.”

The prosecution, on the other hand, countered that the jury clearly intended for Merra to die.

Watson goes through punctuation, grammar, and style by examining text and sayings by authors, for example, Irvine Welsh, Raymond Chandler, and Herman Melville.

Speaking of the latter, "Moby-Dick" contains around 210,000 words and 4000 semicolons; one for every 52 words, of which Watson notes that "[t]he semicolons are Moby-Dick’s joints, allowing the novel the freedom of movement it needed to tour such a large and disparate collection of themes."

There's a particularly wondrous dissing of David Foster Wallace, the author who is—by many white men—considered to be The Golden Child of the 21st century where language is concerned. Watson not only disses his "because"-form-of-logic stance on Standard written English, but also of his oft-failed grammar. It's fun to see, albeit a tad strange to see her rant go on for as long as it does.

All in all, this is a fun book to read. Watson has chosen to balance stories of grammatical rules and real-life examples of how the semicolon has been used (and abused), framing it all in neat paragraphs that stand out, simply because they're valuable. If this is a sign of things to come from this author, I will keep eyes peeled.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I anticipated this book for weeks while I waited on the library reserve list. The first 50 pages met my expectations. After that, it looked like the author was trying to make a book out of an essay.

The first three chapters give a history of the semi-colon and a summary of how grammar rules evolved in the US. My big take-away from this section was that one’s preference among conflicting rules depends on one’s perspective on the finished product of the written text: how it looks (orthography), how it reads how it reads out loud (prosody) or adherence to the structure (syntax).

The subsequent chapters demonstrate the use of the semi-colon with examples from case law and literature. The best example given was a Martin Luther King speech which demonstrated the power of the semi-colon written and spoken text. There are examples of quasi-punctuation marks such as the dash and parenthesis. There is some wandering such as into other language issues (i.e. David Wallace Foster’s challenge to his students) that go beyond punctuation.

[Marta · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I borrowed this audio from the library, I was attracted by its shortness and my hopes that it would be similar to Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Alas, this incoherent meandering of torturous ramblings was neither entartaining, nor made any sense.

I think the semicolon was involved somehow. And I think she said we should relax our rules about grammar... but in such circuituous, repetitive, pretentious drivel, that it made no argument about why. Or if it did, I did not get it.

I did, however, recently listened to Fry's English Delight: Series 2, in which the creators explained, succinctly and in a thoroughly entertaining fashion, that the reason is that language changes - and we should roll with the changes, instead of following rules just because someone wrote them down years ago. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary has embraced this philosophy in its latest editions.

This, however, is not evident from Semicolon. It is a collection of vague ideas prompted by their relation to the titular punctuation mark. I suggest to skip it and read Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation instead.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

The semicolon as always been the most mysterious of punctuation marks, and although Cecelia Watson's book never really gets to uncover the real nature of the pause, it is a fairly light and enjoyable read. The first half, which deals with the origins and early history of the semicolon, is mildly interesting, but it is the second half when we get to look at Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, and Irving Welsh among others, that the book really gets into gear. I am not sure I came out any more confident about using the semicolon, but at least I feel confident enough to go on and tackle the oxford comma.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think I know a single other person who would enjoy Cecelia Watson's Semicolon as much as I did—no, not even the talented former coworker who impressed me greatly by using appropriate semicolons in her technician's notes. Which is a shame, because this book turned out to be lively and entertaining, and surprisingly wide-ranging considering its brevity and niche subject.

Watson does not confine herself to the consideration of the semicolon—she branches out, relating the use of commas, dashes and all the other marks, and delving into their real-world impacts on society, justice, and the law. Regarding the execution of Salvatore Merra, which rested on the omission of a single comma, Watson notes:

{...}it doesn't necessarily mean that the decision of the court was motivated by bigotry. It could be coincidence. But such coincidences deserve our attention and our vigilance. So many discrete racist or other malignantly biased acts can be excused as meaningless matters of happenstance, just as a puzzle piece looks like an abstract blob of nothing until hundreds of them are assembled all together and then suddenly—we see.
—p.84

Semicolon spends a lot of time—as it must—acknowledging its topic's negative reputation; one example that struck home for me:

{...}my friends James Harker and Paul Fessa decide that the semicolon is "the California stop of punctuation."
—p.95

Technically legal (but only in some contexts), usually misused, and often annoying to watch... yeah, I can see that.

I also agree with Watson's observation that authors' ability to analyze and control their own work only goes so far:

There's an extent to which your analysis of your own work is an interesting jumping-off point for criticism, but there's equally an extent to which your writing is its own entity and exists independent of you and your intentions and your hopes and dreams.
—p.105

*

For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught.

—From Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, on p.128.

Still not gonna read it, though!

*

Watson herself is an excellent prose stylist, by the way. I noticed only one awkwardness in Watson's writing, and it's a very minor one:

Although it would be a mistake to chalk up to mere performance King's stylistic choices and his careful cultivation of a distinguished intellectual family tree{...}
—p.165

How much better would have been, "Although it would have been a mistake to chalk up King's stylistic choices and his careful cultivation of a distinguished intellectual family tree to mere performance{...}"—but then later on the very same page Watson brought me joy by using the phrase "the first person to home in on" (as opposed to the meaningless but all-too-common "hone in on").

I also really enjoyed Watson's deft takedown of David Foster Wallace:

Where Wallace sees moral high ground lush with the fruits of knowledge, I see a desolate valley, in which the pleasures of speaking "properly" and following rules have choked out the very basic ethical principle of giving a shit about what other people have to say.
—p.170

*

I became aware of Semicolon through a rather unusual path, a testament to the value of serendipity: I saw a picture of its cover on Flickr, of all things (although good luck finding the image there among the more than 19,000 other images in See Reeves' feed). I am glad to have discovered that the book behind that cover is even better than that snapshot... even if I'm the only one I know who thinks so.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short, intense book was a very pleasurable read! I usually have a small goal when I begin each book - hoping for a change, to take away a nugget, to learn a new fact, identify a take-away. . . .sometimes they are specific and form in my brain before the book is opened and some pop-up as it ends. In this case, I wanted to know exactly what is the "right" function of a semicolon in the world of writing.

HA! Yeah. I was engaged from the very beginning, stayed that way when it got technical. Laughed when it was comical, outraged when the narrative went racial, and then when because of a semicolon a man lost his life (for real. he did. stupid judge.). I was with it. I just knew the book would end with the magic nugget I wished for. Use for this, not for that, she is right, he is wrong, etc., etc. . . .

There was a moment during the general punctuation discussion, and the purpose of all punctuation and grammar that reminded me of the basics of my very first introduction to musical notation - the purpose - to codify rhythm, volume, mood, atmosphere. . . .to express, to convey, to extract more than just notes (more than just words). . . .

As the end drew nearer it became clear. Ms. Watson was passionately persuading, and I could feel the pull. The tide of her subtext argument was gathering. . .in fact, the sands supporting my readerly self were swiftly dissolving in an undertow that threatened to leave me adrift, and did! Arguing for the art of vagarity, and so vagarious, she appears to present the semicolon as the best paintbrush for a pause; for imprecise, inexact, indistinct, hazy atmosphere in our English language. And this requires. . . .a relaxing of the Rules. Perhaps even a banishment, at least as it relates to Semicolon. Strict interpretation certainly cast OUT. Rules only go so far, and semicolon goes beyond and should be allowed to go farther - free interpretations for ALL!

This was a book to which I listened - untouchable and already returned to the digital library from whence it came. I need a TANGIBLE copy of this! I will buy my own copy! I will mark it up, write notes in its cracks and crevices, highlight quotes and dogear my favorite pages. I will lipstick its inside covers with my own passion.

Soon I hope she considers my favorite punc-mark and writes her next book: the ellipsis. . . .

(A romp if you are into these sorts of things. Maybe even if you are not!)

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was surprisingly good. More a history than a howto, you won't come out of it having learned the "correct" way to use a semicolon, but you should come out of it a lot less worried about it.

While nominally focused on the semicolon, that mark serves more as a jumping off point. There's some history around the origin, and usage over time, and even when it was on familiar territory, there was always something new. For example, I've long been aware the so-called "rules" of grammar were made up arbitrarily by a bunch of self-appointed, pedantic assholes, but I was unaware many of them were doing so in an attempt to sell their books to school children, and in an effort to make language seem more "scientific" and thereby justify its being taught in schools. And even then the earliest of those pedants couldn't be bothered to try and dictate rules for punctuation.

She does get into examples of beautiful writing and showcases powerful ways the semicolon can be used stylistically, with examples from writers like Chandler and Melville.

Later in the book she touches on language "rules" as gatekeeping, and discrimination, and gives David Foster Wallace a good whack.

Interestingly, in a footnote on page 103, where she's writing about how to improve the style and effectiveness of one's own writing, given that rulebooks won't do it, Watson advocates for copywork. (That is to say copying out extended passages of writers you admire by hand. No typing!) This is famously how Jack London taught himself to write, copying out Kipling. I've come across this idea a number of times over the past few years, and I suspect there's something to it.

In any case, I've had this on my shelf for years. I don't recall what originally inspired me to buy it, but I'm glad it's random appearance in my GR feed finally prompted me to pick it up and read it.

[Tabby · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all know the Grammar Nazi. Meet the Grammar Punk.

[Alex Sarll]

Yes, I freely admit it; this is a very on-brand book for me to read. Although the British edition is misleading in its presentation; you could undoubtedly learn something from this about the use of semicolons, but to read this lively and digressive essay primarily for practical reasons would be only a little better than reading Proust for the patisserie tips. Watson takes us from the semicolon's birth (in the Renaissance, alongside a host of other marks which proved not to share its staying power); through attempts at pinning down its exact attributes, none of which wholly satisfied; to the legal ructions it has caused. She examines its use by various writers, some of whom you'd expect, like Melville or Henry James ("'You can never revise too often!' I used to tell students, before I had read much James."); others not so much ("We've already seen Irvine Welsh use it in Scots dialect in the previous chapter, and not because he's trying to make his characters sound like they went to Eton and are internationally ranked in dressage"). She's the sort of person who has a favourite grammarian (Isaiah J Morris - "What can I say? I like a sharp-spoken rebel."); she has one passage which is pure poetry about the semicolon as it manifests in different typefaces - "Palatino's is a thin flapper in a big hat, slouched against a wall at a party". But for all her obvious love of this most elegant piece of punctuation, she is above all aware that it should be a servant rather than a master.

[Michael F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only an excellent little book on the history and virtues of the semicolon, but also a thoughtful examination of the very concept of punctuation rules and an eloquent critique of the arrant pedantry to which grammar lovers like myself are too often prone.

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, as only a full-length book about punctuation can be.

There's a lot to absorb here. Watson goes deep into the history of punctuation and everything she presents challenges the conception of grammar "rules". It's all born out of a love of language and the power of writing, transcending any stipulation for when to use this confusing little mark, if at all.

I can wholeheartedly support the drive behind this effort, and the example cases of semicolons from literary greats are breathtaking.

There are some diversions: a little time spent on the em-dash and full colon, and some seeming tangents. The most divergent of these for me was a lengthy piece criticizing David Foster Wallace's insistence that his students (directed primarily at the non-white ones) adapt to a standard literary English in order to be taken seriously. Only now do I realize how this in fact ties to her thesis, that punctuation and all language use is and must be fluid, and has been for much longer than efforts to pin it down into grammar textbooks have existed, in order to genuinely reflect humanity.

It's a bit messy, but it's full of memorable passages from both the author and the cited writers, and it calls to my increasing need for writing as art.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew punctuation could cause such controversy! Enthusiastic, engaging exploration of a generally lesser-used type of punctuation. I confess I was astonished by all the confusion about its use. I love books about grammar and punctuation, and this one reminded me of Nancy Willard's Simple Pictures Are Best, one of my daughter's favorite children's book. Paraphrasing that: Simple rules are best.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mission 2026: Binge reviewing (and rereading on occasion) all previous Reads, I was too slothful to review, back when I read them.

Reading Cecelia Watson’s ‘Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark’ is a strangely intimate experience.

One does not expect intimacy from punctuation, from a mark so small it can be overlooked entirely, yet Watson manages to turn the semicolon into a character with a biography, a temperament, a history of scandal and redemption.

And for me, reading this as a professional English tutor added a particular, almost private pleasure. Watson’s book felt less like an abstract history of punctuation and more like a vindication of countless classroom moments—those pauses where a student hesitates, unsure whether to end a sentence or let it breathe a little longer.

The semicolon, in her telling, becomes a pedagogical ally: a mark that rewards attentiveness, judgment, and confidence rather than rote rule-following.

I found myself thinking of lessons where grammar stopped being mechanical and became ethical—about choosing clarity without flattening thought, connection without confusion. In that sense,

‘Semicolon’ affirmed something I have long suspected but rarely articulated: that teaching English is not about enforcing correctness so much as nurturing sensitivity to rhythm, nuance, and the courage to let ideas meet each other halfway on the page.
The following eight chapters make this book up:

1) Deep History: The Birth of the Semicolon
2) The Science of Semicolons: American Grammar Wars
3) Sexy Semicolons
4) Loose Women and Liquor Laws: The Semicolon Wreaks Havoc in Boston
5) The Minutiae of Mercy
6) Carving Semicolons in Stone
7) Semicolon Savants
8) Persuasion and Pretension: Are Semicolons for Snobs?

By the time you finish the book, the semicolon no longer sits passively on the page; it glances back at you, knowingly, as if it has survived far worse accusations than your mild hesitation about whether to use it in the next sentence.

Watson begins not with rules but with birth, and this is crucial. The semicolon does not emerge from a grammar handbook or a classroom chalkboard but from Renaissance Italy, from a moment of exuberant disorder when punctuation had not yet been shackled into obedience. Venice in the late 15th century was not merely a city of canals but a city of presses, ink, ambition, and intellectual bravado.

The semicolon is born there in 1494, and Watson treats this birth not as an accident of typography but as a deliberate aesthetic choice. It is half comma, half colon—visually and philosophically—a compromise made visible, a pause that refuses to choose between continuation and conclusion.

The figure who midwifed this birth, Aldus Manutius, emerges in Watson’s telling as something like a Renaissance hacker: a printer who thought deeply about how texts should move through the world and through the mind.

Manutius was obsessed with flow—how a reader breathes while reading, how quickly the eye travels, how thought unfolds across lines of ink.

His innovations extend far beyond the semicolon itself. He refines Greek typography so that ancient texts can circulate more widely; he invents italic type, slanted and elegant, a visual cue for emphasis and intimacy; he shrinks books into portable objects by folding pages again and again, creating what we would now call paperbacks.

The semicolon fits naturally into this ecology of efficiency and elegance. It is a tool for speed and nuance at once, allowing sentences to stretch without breaking, to hold complexity without collapsing into chaos.

Watson’s prose lingers lovingly on this moment when punctuation was experimental, when readers and writers tested marks the way musicians test scales. There were no fixed rules, only tendencies, preferences, instincts. Humanists repunctuated classical texts not out of pedantry but out of belief: belief that how a sentence pauses changes how it thinks. The semicolon, in this light, is not a technical convenience but a philosophical statement. It says that thought is not always binary, not always period or comma, not always end or continuation. Sometimes thought hovers.

The early semicolon is promiscuous in the best sense of the word. It appears where it pleases, inserted by printers and writers according to feel rather than prescription. Watson delights in this looseness.

For centuries, the semicolon wanders through texts without a stable job description, invited into sentences because it feels right, because something in the rhythm demands a longer pause than a comma but refuses the finality of a full stop.

This indeterminacy makes the semicolon vulnerable. Once rules arrive—and rules always arrive eventually—the semicolon is accused of being vague, pretentious, and unnecessary. Watson shows how a mark born in freedom suffers under standardization.

The first serious attempt to civilize the semicolon in English comes with Ben Jonson, and Watson treats this moment with gentle irony. Jonson, poet, critic, arbiter of taste, does not so much tame the semicolon as give it a respectable alibi. He defines it as a pause longer than a comma, shorter than a period, a place where one imperfect sentence leans into another.

This definition, slightly awkward and faintly apologetic, gives the semicolon a foothold in English prose. Because Jonson uses it, others follow. Authority confers legitimacy, even in punctuation.

Watson is acutely aware of the politics embedded in this process. Marks survive not because they are inherently superior, but because powerful writers endorse them.

Yet legitimacy comes at a price. As grammar hardens into doctrine, the semicolon becomes suspect. It is too flexible, too suggestive, too resistant to simplification.

Watson traces the slow accumulation of hostility around the mark, a hostility that is often emotional rather than logical. The semicolon, she suggests, irritates because it exposes the writer’s thinking in motion. It refuses the neat packaging of ideas. It insists on adjacency rather than hierarchy. In a culture increasingly obsessed with clarity as speed, the semicolon looks indulgent.

The book becomes particularly fascinating when Watson documents the real-world consequences of punctuation disputes. This is where the semicolon steps out of literature and into law, into violence, into history.

1) Two law professors in 19th century Paris settle a disagreement over semicolon usage with a duel.

2) In 20th century America, two men accused of the same crime receive radically different sentences because of ambiguous punctuation.

3) Alcohol sales in Boston are suspended for years because a semicolon destabilizes a statute.

4) Even the prosecution of Nazi war crimes is momentarily threatened by a misplaced mark.

Watson does not sensationalize these anecdotes; she lets them accumulate, quietly devastating. The implication is clear: punctuation is not decorative. It governs meaning, and meaning governs lives.

What makes Watson’s treatment compelling is her refusal to moralize. She does not argue that semicolons are inherently good or bad. Instead, she shows how they function as stress tests for language systems. Where precision is demanded, ambiguity becomes dangerous.

Where ambiguity is necessary, over-precision becomes oppressive. The semicolon sits exactly at this fault line. It is neither fully binding nor fully separating. It creates relationships without specifying their nature. That is its power—and its peril.

The middle sections of the book read like a salon argument conducted across centuries. Watson assembles the semicolon’s critics with care, letting them speak in their own voices. The contempt is often theatrical. Grammarians sneer; novelists mock. Kurt Vonnegut famously dismisses semicolons as ornamental proof of higher education. Others call them effete, cowardly, and pretentious. The vehemence is striking. One does not usually hate punctuation this much unless something deeper is being threatened.

Watson suggests—without overstating—that the semicolon becomes a proxy for anxieties about class, education, and authority. To use a semicolon is, in some eyes, to signal elitism, to flaunt learning, to slow the reader down.

In an age that prizes accessibility and speed, the semicolon feels like resistance. It demands attention. It asks the reader to linger in uncertainty. That is an unforgivable sin in certain stylistic regimes.

And yet, the haters are rarely consistent. Watson’s treatment of Mark Twain is quietly devastating. Twain publicly disparages semicolons, compares them to parasites, boasts of excising them from his prose. Yet his most famous novel contains them in abundance. Watson does not accuse him of hypocrisy; she simply lays out the evidence.

The semicolon, it seems, sneaks into sentences when writers are not looking, when thought outruns doctrine. It appears when complexity insists on being held together rather than chopped apart.

On the other side stand the lovers: Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Fitzgerald, Melville. Watson’s reading of Melville is particularly rich. In ‘Moby-Dick’, semicolons proliferate not because Melville is showing off, but because his sentences are doing too much work to be neatly divided. They sprawl, digress, double back, accumulate metaphors. The semicolon becomes structural, a series of small nails holding an unwieldy architecture together. Remove them, and the building collapses.

Watson’s sensitivity to literary texture shines here. She understands that punctuation is not merely grammatical but musical. A period shuts a door. A comma opens a window. A semicolon keeps two rooms connected, letting air flow between them.

This is why writers who care about rhythm gravitate toward it. It allows sentences to think aloud.

The book’s later chapters feel almost elegiac. Watson surveys the modern landscape of writing—emails, text messages, marketing copy—and notes the semicolon’s retreat. Brevity rules. Declarative clarity trumps nuance. The semicolon, with its subtlety and patience, feels out of place. It belongs to a slower tempo of thought, one that allows ideas to coexist without forcing resolution.

Yet Watson refuses to write an obituary. Instead, she frames the semicolon as a specialized instrument, like a cherry pitter in a kitchen drawer: unnecessary for daily meals, indispensable when needed. This metaphor is both humble and defiant. It rejects the idea that language must always be optimized for efficiency. Some tools exist for pleasure, for precision, for moments when thought exceeds simple structures.

What lingers after finishing the book is not a desire to use more semicolons indiscriminately, but a sharpened awareness of choice. Watson does not evangelize.

She educates, contextualizes, humanizes. The semicolon emerges as a survivor—mocked, misused, misunderstood, yet stubbornly present. Its history mirrors the history of writing itself: experimentation giving way to standardization, followed by rebellion, followed by forgetting, followed by rediscovery.

Reading this book feels, at times, like listening to a defense attorney argue for a client everyone has already judged. But Watson is too intelligent to plead innocence. She knows the semicolon can be abused. She knows it can clutter prose, obscure meaning, signal insecurity. What she insists on is proportionality.

The semicolon is not a crime; it is a risk. And all interesting writing involves risk.

In the end, ‘Semicolon’ is not really about punctuation. It is about how we tolerate complexity, how much ambiguity we allow ourselves, how patient we are with thought that does not arrive prepackaged. The semicolon stands as a small, defiant mark against a culture of either/or. It says: both can exist; one can lead into another; meaning can be relational rather than absolute.

Closing the book, one feels oddly protective of this tiny glyph. Not because it needs saving, but because it reminds us of something fragile and essential: that language is not a machine but a living system, shaped by breath, hesitation, and desire.

The semicolon survives because writers, at certain moments, need to refuse the tyranny of the full stop.

They need a pause that is not an ending.

They need, briefly, to keep going.

A brilliant book. Most recommended.

[Namenamenamename · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up for a lark because I like semicolons, but it also makes a concise and persuasive argument that prescriptive punctuation rules are bunk, even more so than I've always thought. This tiny book has genuinely changed my mind about some things, and I feel freed.

Apparently the prescriptive rules only started cropping up at all in the 19th century, as a result of competing grammarians. Before that, punctuation was seen as purely expressive, subjective and musical; just put the pauses where you want them or where they work best for the meaning or rhythm of the sentences, just as for pauses in music.

Even the first grammar and style rulebooks - also a fairly recent invention - didn't even try to set rules for punctuation. They just said, essentially, that there were none.

This book also contains many interesting examples and examinations of the different ways authors have used semicolons. Often I started reading these anecdotes thinking they might not be of interest, but they always were in the end.

I wish I could compel every grammar stickler to read this book, along with The Prodigal Tongue by Lynne Murphy.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not what I was expecting. For a book focused on a punctuation mark, I thought it was going to be a lot more focused on grammar rules. However, the opposite was true; the author makes a compelling case for worrying less about the rules. As she explains: “We could not (and perhaps would not want to) go back to a time before there were punctuation rules. But maybe we can think beyond them now, to develop a new, more functional, more ethical philosophy of punctuation: one that would support a richer way of learning, teaching, using, and loving language.” She emphasized communication over technicalities and the recognition of punctuation use as personal, stylistic choices.

This book included beautiful artwork at the beginning of each chapter and had neat facts woven throughout (e.g., Moby Dick had 4000 semicolons in it, there used to be a backwards question mark used for rhetorical questions), but it also got into topics of racism and elitism that I was not expecting but certainly appreciated.

“It could be coincidence. But such coincidences deserve our attention and our vigilance. So many discrete racist or otherwise malignantly biased acts can be excused as meaningless matters of happenstance, just as a puzzle piece looks like an abstract blob of nothing until hundreds of them are assembled all together and then suddenly - we see.”

[Haley R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5/5 stars

Good god. I don't really write official reviews, but this book was so frustrating that I have to say at least something. Pardon the disorganized thoughts; this book makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Other 2 star reviews do a much better job than what I'm about to say. Nonetheless, semicolons are still my favorite punctuation mark.

To read the start of book on the history of semicolons: read chapters 1 and 2.
To read a collection of pages that resemble an AP English rhetorical analysis on steroids: read chapters 3 onward.

Around chapter 3, this book goes straight from "hey this is why semicolons are cool, why they matter, and how you can better your use of them" to "I am an author trying to fill pages with quotes by a different author but here's how it relates to the point I'm getting at with how semicolons portray [adjective] in [adjective] [manner]". It just started to feel formulaic, boring, and a little pushy.

Ok cool I get it---you write books so "naturally" gave up the dash mark for Lent. Write a blog series on this; not a damn book.

[Jessie Pietens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some very interesting, albeit somewhat idealistic ideas, about punctuation and grammar. Although the semicolon was (mostly) at the centre of the book, there were a lot of detours to grammar and other punctuation marks. This was not at all unpleasant, but I felt like Watson could have broadened the scope of her book by calling it a history if punctuation and broadening the work with even more information on those marks beside the semicolon. Nevertheless the book was clever, we’ll structured and interesting and will give the reader a multitude of (sometimes philosophical) anecdotes which one can use with regards to ideas on rules and who decides what the rules are. If you’re interested in grammar and punctuation of the English language. and it’s history, and if quirky knowledge is your thing, you should definitely read this one!

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title indicates this is a book all about semicolons, but grammar; grammar manuals; the teaching of grammar; whether punctuation in general is a part of language; and whether there should be rules for punctuation and grammar, and if they should be followed are also addressed.
There is also chapter devoted to style and the use of semicolons by authors as diverse as Henry Melville and Raymond Chandler, and how effectively these semicolons are used.

I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review, and appreciate the opportunity.

[Kallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly fun and informative little book about punctuation, specifically the semicolon, and some people's very strong feelings on the matter. Do I know when to use a semicolon now? Whenever the hell I feel like it.

[Mary Warnement · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect of Watson's slim volume. To say it didn't disappoint is an understatement; her writing was excellent company on the subway. She brought old friends like Erasmus into the conversation--I hadn't know he coined the Latin lunulae for parentheses--and new ones like G.E.M Anscombe, whom I must learn more about. Could that pants anecdote; Anscombe removing her pants upon being denied entry because women in pants not allowed in that Boston establishment (143-5); could that possibly be true? Hmm, the Guardian obit includes it. (I'm not sure how I feel about those semicolons, but given the subject of the book and Watson's inspiration to experiment, I'm keeping them.)

I remembered being startled at how much I enjoyed reading the Chicago Manual of Style in college and graduate school. I appreciated the rules but wasn't slavish to them. I was perhaps slavish about the citation rules but one really had to be, and it was so satisfying. As I've returned to researching and have focused of late on updating my bibliography, I've regretted that I cannot immediately recall the format, either because I have forgotten or more likely because with newer digital examples I need to learn the new one. (I've got online exhibition down now.)

Her examples range from laws and legal cases to literature. When discussing James and his NY edition rewrites--full confession, his rewritten ending to Portrait of a Lady annoyed me no end--Watson writes (145-146): "But that reviewer of James is correct that uncertainty, ambiguirty, and vagueness do put a certain burden on the reader. Or maybe it's better to say: they highlight the fact that writing is an exchange between at least two people: writer and reader, or sometimes writer and the writer's own future self. There is nothing wrong with trying to be clear; those golas are often productive and have their place. But I don't think it's ssuch a bad thing sometimes to/ be engaged in the practice of working things out in words, of having a conversation. Ambiguity can be useful and productive, and it can make some room for new ideas. It can help the reader _create_ something out of the materials the writer provides." Must share that with Joe.

I enjoyed my exchange as reader with Watson; in part, I admit, because she seems a kindred spirit. I appreciated her comments on the advantage of writing or rather copying. I didn't note where she wrote that, but in flipping through I must include Solnit's "writing is not typing" (122).

Leaving work every day, I must reveal the contents of my bag and so our security guards come to know my reading habits Consequently I often learn about theirs too, and upon showing this book to one, he shared his complete lack of understanding of the semicolon. He is a freelance composer as well, and so I attempted to use music as a comparison; this before even reading Watson's attempts at that analogy. He wasn't getting it--that different punctuation marks indicated length of pause made some sense, but not the semicolon. Next week I'll share one of Watson's examples, a powerful passage from Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It caught me in its sweep on my commute, and I'm curious to see if it helps him understand. Must read that whole piece again.

Her criticism of David Foster Wallace was right. I don't think of I've ever thought of the Rev. Jackson's writings conforming. They are powerful, but I think of them as outside the Standard Written English. Maybe it's his forceful delivery.

I affirm her conclusion that the point of writing and punctuation is to communicate: "prioritise communication over a set of fictitious rules" (177). People who fixate on small typos or grammatical errors in everyday speech annoy me, make me shake my head. They care more about their nitpickiness than the other human being. For heaven sake, we all make mistakes, and it's just a misplaced apostrophe. Show a little kindness and be aware that you make mistakes too. My guideline is that common sense should rule all aspects of life. She questions what the purpose of rules are and concludes (173): "Rules, considered as frameworks within which to work rather than as boundaries marking the outer limits of rhetorical possibility, might spur creativity, jsut as a poet might find it productive to wowrk within the strictures of the sonnet form. But we would be making a big mistake to teach that the only 'legal' way to write poetry is to write sonnets. The same goes for punctuation rules."

I'm inspired to look for a 1906 edition of The Manual of Style. Parkes's Pause and Effect (which I see is ridiculously expensive so I'll have to make do with the library copy), Henrich von Kleist's short story "Die Marquise von O" and Theordore Adorno's "On Punctuation."

I had to stop and consider whether to get the American or UK edition, but the Fourth Estate's cover won me over. I like their attractive and well-proportioned books.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

People will try to tell you to just use a period; sometimes people are obtuse and banal.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is it really possible to write an entire book about the semicolon?

No. It's not.

Cecelia Watson talks a bit about the history of the semicolon in the early chapters of this book, and then...there's really not much more to say about it. So most of the book ranges between punctuation generally and style and usage, ending with a chapter about the role of rules in writing and communication. She presents passages by Herman Melville, Raymond Carver, Irvine Welsh, Henry James, and others, which, it's true, include semicolons. But I wasn't convinced that the semicolons were such a huge deal. And because these authors used the semicolon in unconventional ways, it's only likely to further confuse people who already feel that the semicolon occupies a rather gray area of punctuation.

The book isn't awful, but it just doesn't add anything to the discussion if you've already read a lot about style, usage, and grammar. Watson sometimes veers into the territory of "In order to show you how much I'm not a snob, I'll be crass and talk about drinking and stuff," which never impresses me.

[Leo Vladimirsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

kept me up until 5am. watson has a subtle seductive prose that brings to life fundamental philosophical issues of language that go far beyond punctuation; this book is absolutely worth your time...

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely delightful, and even at some times gripping! Watson wields footnotes with an almost Pratchettian assurance.