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Yesterday, our Editorial Emergency crew Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner offered up a great antidote to semicolon-phobia. "Once you understand their appeal," they advise, "semicolons can be addictive." Simon and Julia aren't the only ones singing the praises of this humble punctuation mark. Lately we've seen surprising expressions of affection for the semicolon, from New York to Paris.
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Admit it — you're afraid of semicolons.
Lots of folks, even professional writers, will cop to this phobia. No fear? Prove it (or engage in a little immersion therapy) by reviewing the following pairs of independent clauses and identifying the ones that would be better served by a semicolon than the period you see there now.
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Laura C. of Wantage, N.J. writes in with today's Mailbag Friday question:
Co-workers keep using the word caveat around work and it's driving me crazy.
People will say, "This is a great plan, but the caveat is..." (meaning
'the hook or catch is...'). Sometimes they'll use it as a transitive verb: "Let's caveat that
proposed media spend."
Is this really acceptable?
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In this weekend's New York Times Magazine, I'm the guest writer for the "On Language" column while William Safire is on vacation. I use my pinch-hitting spot to look at recent developments with the word fail, which in online usage has transformed from a verb to an interjection and a noun (and even sometimes an adjective). But truth be told, fail is only the most prominent example of a much wider phenomenon, with a whole series of expressive words getting similar treatment.
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