Punctuation

[nefhiriel]

Punctuation never ceases to confuse me. Colons and semi-colons, ellipses... And then, of course, there are dashes--as apposed to captions (sometimes  I  just can't make my mind up). And don't even get me started on exclamation point abuse!!!

My ever-patient sister/editor has explained all these concepts to me on more than one occasion, and I think I've made some progress with commas--and even begun to get my dashes sorted out--but the concept of the semi-colon still eludes me. 

However, I think I may have found the solution to end all my punctuation problems once and for all. I'm tempted to use this solution on this very post, and thus avoid any embarrassing fumbles. Hmm...maybe an explanation first, would be better.

Our family loves to read together at night. We pick out a good book, start a fire in the fireplace (now that we have one), and dad reads aloud while we work on various art projects. The other night, we started reading a book called "American Eccentrics" by Carl Sifakis. It’s really quite fascinating, though my brother and sister do tend to smirk and cast side-long glances at me every time we start reading it. It’s like they think I belong in there somewhere with all those odd-balls. Go figure.

Anyways, on with my solution… In a recent chapter, we were introduced to a man named Timothy Dexter, who lived from 1747 to 1806. I won’t go over most of his very bizarre and eccentric life, but there was a section at the end that caught my interest. Everyone else laughed, but actually…I think he might there might be something to his idea. You see he wrote a book, but his punctuation (among other things) was atrocious—practically non-existent. His solution? Let me quote it for you from the book: “Dexter answered complaints about his lack of punctuation by appending to the second edition a full page of commas, periods, question marks, and exclamation point for his critics so ‘they may peper and solt it as they plese.’”

Ingenious, don’t you think? I wonder what my readers would think if I tried that out on my next fanfic post. I’m guessing either they’ll agree that Dexter’s idea was brilliant…or maybe they’ll just agree that I do belong in that book along with the other “eccentrics”.

- Nef

(Note: For anyone interested in reading “American Eccentrics”, I would add a note that there are some sections that we’ve skipped due to content ;-) )

Comments

[polingly.livejournal.com]

*giggles madly* See, I love punctuation, though I tend to overdo it. With such a range of selection, I get over-excited, throw in a dash of semicolons, parenthesis, (or particularly ellipses....), and rejoice that I've put it all together in a grammatical way. And then, I need to find out if I've actually said anything in the words I've framed so neatly in all of it....

Anyway, as to Dexter's solution...that's utterly brilliant. *sniggers* What a way to tell his readers he appreciates their input, and just look! He'll even go so far as to helpfully provide a solution! I like this man's sense of humor.... :D

[nefhiriel.livejournal.com]

LOL! Great avatar to go with the post ;-)

Yeah, you're one of those punctuation-ally talented people (for which I am eternally jealous of you). My punctuation "style" tend to go through phases: I go absolutely semi-colon crazy, and then have to go back and take 90% of them back out. Ugh. It's even more annoying when I get exclamation point crazy... *tears hair out*