The Semicolon

I’m sometimes tempted to sneer at the incorrect use of a word (bad/badly, between/among, like that).  No, I lie; I often sneer at the incorrect use of anything having to do with our language; I’m not called a curmudgeon for nothing; but on one topic I find it safer to maintain a dignified silence: the proper use of the semicolon; I overuse it; I love it. 

I work beside a shelf of reference works for the writer which I largely ignore; however, I often look up the placement of the semicolon; then, for some reason, I mostly ignore what I learned and immediately forgot.  Call it a foible, a charming lapse.  Please. 

Lewis Thomas, the essayist, wrote a witty piece about punctuation; maybe you were assigned to read it in college as I was.  I reread it the other day in a fit of snobbish virtue after wallowing in a thriller by Stuart Woods.    Lewis Thomas exhibited a subversive humor with which he made the following lovely point about the semicolon; I’d like to share. 

“The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added; ... with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer.” 

That‘s five semicolons in one short paragraph; I cut out another one.  “Read on; it will get clearer.”  I could summon a reverent gratitude for that statement alone--the eminent man’s excuse to use the little symbol.  I believe, perhaps too ardently, in the wisdom of clarification and amplification; especially when I’m not sure what it is, exactly, that I want to say.  I clarify a lot, then amplify, give examples, and repeat myself until the painful time that it’s time to (gulp) edit my work.  Then it’s time for the stylebook.

Or, if I’m not being paid, not.  You understand.