"Hey, Kid, I finished looking at your manuscript," Karl said at lunch last week. "You used too many semicolons." He bit into his mushroom and Swiss cheeseburger in a way that showed it was his final word on the subject.
My so-called friend, Karl the Curmudgeon, was a famous novelist; we often met for lunch to discuss writing, current events, or why he's wrong about everything, including punctuation.
So you read my manuscript, and your only feedback is that I use too many semicolons? Nothing about the story or narrative or character development? Just 'too many semicolons?'
He swallowed and thought for a second. "Well," he said, "yeah."
Did you actually read it? I asked. Or did you just count the semicolons?
"Don't be ridiculous." He took a drink of his Coke. "I did a search for them."
Nerd, I snorted.
Kurt, the bartender, came over bearing refills. "You guys aren't about to get into another stupid punctuation fight, are you?" He set down our Cokes. "Last time you got into a punctuation fight, I nearly 86ed you."
That was seven years ago! I said. And it was about the Oxford comma, which is never stupid.
It's a bar, and we're the only ones here! I called. I took a bite of my BBQ bacon cheeseburger and said to Karl, What's wrong with semicolons anyway?
"No one needs them," Kurt said. "They're pretentious and elitist."
Said the guy who carries an antique pocket watch in his vest pocket. Who even wears a vest? What are you, an extra from Peaky Blinders?
Karl placed a protective hand over his beloved pocket watch."It's a waistcoat, and gentlemen of distinction wear them," Karl said.
So why are you wearing it?
"We're not talking about me, we're talking about your overuse of semicolons. Why can't you just end a sentence with a period like everyone else?"
William Faulkner wrote a nearly 1,300-word sentence using semicolons, I said.
"Yeah, but no one reads Faulkner anymore. Besides, Kurt Vonnegut said that all a semicolon does is show you've been to college."
I know. I hung one on my wall instead of my diploma.
Karl guffawed and took another bite of cheeseburger. Kurt walked back out of the kitchen.
"So, what stupid punctuation are you fighting about today?" he said.
"Semicolons," said Karl. "I finished the Kid's manuscript; he used 87 semicolons."
"You counted them?" said Kurt.
He did a search for them, I said, rolling my eyes to show how stupid that sounded.
"I'm with Karl on this one; 87 is a lot of semicolons," said Kurt.
It's an 80,000-word manuscript! I said. That's one every 900 words or so. That's not so many.
"Why would you use a semicolon when you could just use a period or a comma?" said Karl.
How else are people going to know I went to college? I asked.
Kurt shrugged. "Giant sign?" he said.
Have you heard the story of the two French law professors in the 19th century? They disagreed about whether a piece of text they were writing needed a semicolon or not, so they fought a duel with swords over it.
They both nodded; they had heard this particular story.
Well, imagine being the professor who said, 'I love the semicolon so much, I'm willing to stab you about it.' That's where we are right now.
"That's pretty excessive," said Karl. "I can see you getting stabby about the Oxford comma, but the semicolon?"
Hey, I don't have to follow what John Irving called 'the one comma, one period, and you’re out Hemingway bullspit.' (Reader, I didn't really say bullspit.)
Kurt and Karl recoiled as if I had slapped them. "Watch your mouth, Kid!" said Karl.
Alright, I'm sorry, I said, holding up my hands. I didn't mean to disparage The Master. But there are times when we need longer sentences; sentences that wander and meander and take us far from home; sentences that convey a deeper complexity and meaning than Hemingway's 'noun verb hunting' ones.
"But why can't you do that with commas?" asked Karl. "I just write sentences with commas, and I can still keep the flow."
People who complain about semicolons don't actually know when you're supposed to use them, I said. They hide their ignorance behind a veil of disdain and contempt, but it's all just an act.
"Are you saying I'm ignorant about semicolons?" growled Karl, straightening himself up in his chair.
Yes, I said. They've popped up seven times in this story, and no one noticed; you and Kurt used them three times yourselves without batting an eye. Ooh, and there went the eighth one.
Kurt swore, and Karl called me a bad name.
Careful, I said. This is a family establishment.
Photo credit: MTSOfan (Flickr, Creative Commons 0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.