As some of you may or may not know, I have a problem. Like many problems it started out innocently enough, here and there, a dabble, a pinch. Nothing needed to be said about it, I had everything under control. But, the jungle cat must wake eventually, and it is hungry after a long sleep.
See, the thing about commas, right, is that they start to add up on you. Individually they’re just these measly little, insignificant splotches that somehow create some order in a string of arguments, but put them into the wrong hands (or wrong typewriter if you’re pretentious enough to use a typewriter) and things can go horribly awry. First and foremost because commas are meant to be used sparingly. One comma per sentence is generally enough. However, there are those of us, poor unfortunate souls that we are, who simply cannot resist the temptations of run-on sentences and long parenthetical tangents, and who, also unfortunately, are morally opposed to semicolons.
Which brings me to my beef with semicolons. Semicolons are the most ridiculous form of punctuation ever created by man–yes, man, a woman would never do something so silly. It’s like a period was trying to hitch a ride to the end of a sentence but got stuck halfway there. Now it’s forever stranded in punctuation limbo, but still it tries to do something meaningful with its life, the result of which is this halfbreed: the semicolon. In fact, semicolons are the most arrogant form of punctuation available. In using a semicolon one is assuming that the two independent but closely related clauses are okay with being combined sans conjunction. How dare you just presume to create a new identity for them (insert interrobang here). Maybe they were secure in their identities as simple sentences and you’ve just forced them to have an identity crisis. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!
What was I talking about? Well, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the interrobang is sadly, sadly underrated, and needs to be welcomed into our lives as a legitimate form of punctuation.
