Ok, not really, punctuation is a good thing. But I heard a tidbit drift across the other
night down at the diner that involved punctuation, at least one element of it,
and it’s been slowly foaming in the back of my thoughts ever since. The humble semi-colon apparently has been
drafted to have a brand new meaning.
Apparently some well meaning folk have designated it the new symbol for
those involved in some manner with the subject of mental illness. Hmmm… ok, if you say so.
The choice of the semi-colon is actually a bit interesting
considered against its’ grammatical usage. A semi-colon is one of the trickier
of the punctuations to use correctly. As
I understand it (and lord knows I’m no grammar Nazi so it’s entirely possible
my understanding is incomplete) a full colon is used to indicate the start a
listing of related things or ideas within the sentence that share some
commonality defined by the section before the colon appeared. When the list is of objects or simpler well
understood ideas the more common comma is most often seen used for a delimiter
to break up a list into its’ component items, but when the list is of new thoughts
or new ideas spun off from the definition the semi-colon comes into play. Most
generally the list definition added to any section defined by the semi-colon
would stand on its’ own as a full and complete sentence. The humble and in these latter days seldom
used (beyond the inevitable emoticon ;-) semi-colon allowed writers of days
gone by to build very complex sentences reflecting very complex ideas,
veritable eco-systems of related thought.
Where there are semi-colons there is usually a great deal of thought or,
failing deep and deliberate thought, a very limited understanding of the
subject at hand.
Perhaps it is the very complexity the semi-colon enables
that got it chosen as a small and unobtrusive tattoo symbol for those who
define themselves to the world in skin and ink.
Fair enough, I’ve no grief with someone for choosing to wear such a
symbol be it as fair warning to the world or to indicate their life stands in
support of someone so afflicted. Not a
bad thing, not at all. Still though for
myself I think I’ll stay with me old favorite the triple dot ellipse… the
evolving thought, continued.
If your soul were fully writ
Upon your naked skin
Tell me Pilgrim, if you can,
What alphabet it’s in?
I can see it all coming: ";" gets hijacked by activists, then becomes a slur, then gets banned as politically incorrect. Remember "gay"? It once meant "happy, carefree, playful;" and before that it meant "brilliant." (Oops! I used that politically incorrect punctuation properly! How rude of me! *lol*)
ReplyDelete*chuckle* Yup. That do sound like a very plausible life cycle for the whole affair.
DeleteI stumbled upon your blog quite by accident today. Judt thought I'd try and explain this fad for you. The semi-colon was chosen as a symbol for those who have overcome depression/suicidal tendencies because it is grammatically used to indicate a place where a sentence could have stopped but instead continued. :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you, that does make sense of the choice.
Delete