The semicolon is pointless, and it’s ruining your writing
Stop using it now. Smash that key on your keyboard if you have to.
“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” -Kurt Vonnegut
There are two schools of grammar.
Prescriptive
These people are usually copyeditors. You’ll never see one without a style guide. The easiest way to give them a stroke is to use the phrase “could care less” in a sentence.
Descriptive
They’re creatives—storytellers, poets and thinkers—who recognize that language is a living, breathing thing. When it comes to grammar, there are no hard and fast rules. Because the rules are always in flux.
The prescriptive camp will instruct you to insert a semicolon between two related ideas, which also happen to be complete sentences.
A descriptive person will tell you to kill it with fire.
Guess which camp I fall into. Here’s why the semicolon is bad, and you should feel bad for using one:
Readers shouldn’t have to wait that long for air.
Good writing mimics the way people speak. So it makes sense to think of every comma as a one-second pause and every period as a two-second pause. The end of every sentence gives your reader time to catch their breath.
So why are you trying to suffocate them?
Check out this example from The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells:
“Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue.”
See how far you get into that monstrosity before your brain checks out. (If you’re like me, your eyes probably rolled back into your head somewhere around “wonderful deepness.”)
Here’s the thing:
A period can pinch hit for a semicolon 100% of the time.
Really, you don’t even need the semicolon on your roster. Bench it. Put it on the disabled list.
Nobody likes a show off.
This goes back to that Kurt Vonnegut quote at the top of this story. The semicolon is a flashing red light that says, “Hey, reader, I know things.” And flashy writing isn’t accessible writing.
Consider that roughly 88% of Americans have high school diplomas, but only around 32% have finished college. So along with avoiding what I like to call “$10 words,” like braggadocio, schadenfreude and despoil, sentence length is critical.
Keeping yourself in check is easier than you think. Built into Microsoft Word is a tool called “Readability Statistics.” You can enable it here:
After you run a spelling and grammar check, you’ll see a screen like this:
You can see that I’m practicing what I preach—short words, short sentences and good readability. A sixth grader could read this piece without issue! If you don’t have Microsoft Word, you can access a free Flesch-Kincaid tool here.
Grammar is important, but only to a point.
So you managed to write an entire story without making a spelling or grammar mistake. Great! Now put this in your pipe and smoke it:
It’s only a mistake if your reader notices.
Yep. Whom would you rather offend, the grammarian who longs for variety in your punctuation, or the average dude who just wants to be informed, entertained or persuaded?
Thought so.
Proofread your writing. Revise and rewrite. Send your clumsiest sentences to the great word graveyard in the sky. But don’t you ever, ever use a semicolon to join them.
Yeah, I have an irrational hatred of semicolons. What’s your writing pet peeve? Let me know in the comments. Also, consider sharing this piece or clapping for it.
