How are we to understand the semicolon? The traditional grammars say that “the semicolon is used when the clauses are of the same general nature and contribute to the same general effect, especially if one or more of them contain commas” (Kittredge and Farley, Advanced English Grammar); that it “indicates a wider break in thought or construction than the comma, but less than the period” (Foerster and Steadman, Writing and Thinking); and that “scarcely ever will it work with any subordinate conjunction” (Carey, Mind the Stop). That’s the theory, but what does that look like in practice?
The American writer and naturalist John Burroughs wrote lyrical prose about the natural world, and in 1920 he published a series of essays entitled Accepting the Universe: Essays in Naturalism. The fifth paragraph of that work opens with these two sentences, which, aside from their philosophical insight, have much to teach us about the art of writing and the use of the semicolon:
In our practical lives we are compelled to separate good from evil—the one being that which favors our well-being, and the other that which antagonizes it; but, viewed as a whole, the universe is all good; it is an infinite complex of compensations out of which worlds and systems of worlds, and all which they hold, have emerged, and are emerging, and will emerge. This is not the language of the heart or of the emotions—our anthropomorphism cries out against it—but it is the language of serene, impartial reason.
The semicolon appears twice in the first sentence of that passage and it plays by the rules both times: the first instance separates two coordinate clauses, each of which involves the idea of good and evil, and its second appearance abuts the idea that the universe is all good up against the further corresponding idea of its being an infinite complex of compensations. A schematic of the grammatical arrangement would look like this: good and evil; good | all good; compensations, and that reveals an architectonic, or unified, design, which contributes to the meditative quality of the language.
The sentence, though, is long and demanding: sixty-five words, nine clauses—that means nine assertions, nine discrete thoughts which the writer felt compelled to tie together in one semantic breath—along with four phrases (there are even more doing other work) which establish layers of conceptual involvement as the sentence proceeds. That grand structure accounts for the literary texture the sentence weaves, and when the thought is as elaborate as we’ve analyzed, it’s difficult both to write and to read. Right there, though, the sentence offers an instructive comparison with contemporary prose, for nowadays we would be inclined either to chop this heavy original into a number of lighter, distinct sentences, or to retain the phrases and clauses but replace the semicolons with commas.
This latter revision is a common problem in much of simplified, contemporary writing, and if we decided upon it, the sentence would unthread and collect in strands at the bottom of our attention. It is important, therefore, to note and underline the observation those traditional grammars regularly make about using the semicolon: when one of the clauses joined together has internal punctuation of its own (usually commas, but also parentheses and dashes), we best bind it with the next stronger piece of punctuation, which is the semicolon. Here it is helpful to remember that the ascending order of strength among the three most common marks is: comma, then semicolon, then period. If a clause has internal commas of its own, then a semicolon will signal to the reader the larger groups which are to be read as coordinate in meaning. This prevents the reader from falling into a confusion of uncorrelated ideas.
Meaning is coordinate in grammar when elemental structures (word, phrases, and clauses) match across a statement in expressing corresponding ideas. Establishing coordinate meaning is the job of coordinating conjunctions, one of which is but, which alerts the reader that what is about to follow is to be understood in some degree of contrast or even direct opposition to what has just been read. Coordination and subordination also involve the logic of the meaning, a topic beyond our present scope; we should note in passing, though, that what we are saying, its logic, can never be separated from how we’re saying it, its rhetoric. Change the form and we change the angle from which our readers will see the ideas we’re meaning to call to their attention. Perspective is essential to our vision of the truth.
In our example, the conjunction but intends to mark the opposition between our compulsion to separate good from evil in most everything, and the truth, as Burroughs sees it, that the universe is all good, not just in places but in its entirety. The adjectives good and evil are coordinated in opposition to the adjective good. The semicolon immediately before the conjunction has the effect of pausing the reader’s attention to absorb what was just said, because the unaccustomed assertion about the replete goodness of the universe risks shaking the credibility of the writer. This is the reason for the subsequent phrases and clauses in the first sentence which substantiate that claim, and even more so is it the purpose of the sentence which follows: to affirm outright that to believe this is not starry-eyed sentimentality, but the truth when seen dispassionately and rationally.
All this about the semicolons, but we have not said anything about the three dashes in this passage—still another topic altogether. We should note, however, that the sometimes heard advice to always use dashes in pairs is not correct—as the first sentence of Burroughs’s passage and as the sentences in this paragraph illustrate. What is good advice, though—and what I have flagrantly disregarded here—is not to overdo the use of dashes. Alas—but to every choice its purpose.
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