Re: OT semi-colons

["Patricia M. Godfrey" PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx]

Jo Beverley wrote:
> I'm sorry if I seemed to attack. It was meant more humorously, though it is a
> serious concern.
Heavens to Betsy, no! After 45 years of editing touchy authors, I'd
certainly not call that an attack. You raised a recurring problem:
authors often don't know WHY copy editors do things, and think we're
wantonly taking liberties with their prose.
Interestingly enough, this month's /Copy Editor/ does address the demise
of the semicolon between conjoined independent clauses. And in the
sentence you cite, I'd be more likely to want a colon, which was often
used in past times (and I'm a real reactionary: if it's good, who cares
how old it is; hence my sticking to XyWrite) between two clauses when
the second amplified or exemplified the statement in the first. Though
in dialogue, a good case could be made for a dash.

>> I'm trying to imagine when a character might actually say that.<<
Easy. Picture Mrs. Malaprop or --Oh, what's the name of the other
society matron, the one in /School for Scandal /? (played in a masterly
way by Helen Hayes in one of her last Broadway appearances). Georgette
Heyer has a good few examples too. Flibbertygibbet ladies, running on at
the mouth and name-dropping with abandon. On the other hand, if you're
depicting a character like that, you might want to leave the sentence a
mess, as "corroborative verisimilitude."

Editing fiction is very, very tricky.

Patricia M. Godfrey