Apostrophes and semicolons.

Feb 222008

For people who love punctuation, there’s always something to grieve about: Humans have trouble understanding semicolons, and computers can’t handle apostrophes. Fortunately, there is the Semicolon Appreciation Society for those of us who know and love this mark.

magyar
Dylan,
I, without credentials, rely all too often on an ellipsis to indicate a pause. In my technical writing, I had often employed tildes between paragraphs to be sure of separation between each process; it has now been ignored for a long time, and I sincerly thank you for that.
~
I now find the 'squigglie' an ugly mark. _m
Daniel Sroka
I myself am a fan of the semicolon, even if Vonnegut warned that "all they do is show you've been to college".
Dylan
Strange but true, Mike -- people are using the dash more. Maybe not as a substitute for the comma, but it's way more frequent than it used to be. Or should be.
Michael Ansaldo
I LOVE the semicolon! It's so underappreciated. I've also noticed that the dash seems to be the new comma.