THE RETURN OF THE SEMI-COLON?
THE RETURN OF THE SEMI-COLON? I posted here about the passions aroused by the semi-colon, including a duel that was fought over whether to use a colon or a semi-colon. In yesterday Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway celebrated over receiving a text message which used a semi-colon. She compared a sample of her e mails that she recently received with a sample she made in 2000 for a column. Over 25% of the earlier e mails were in lower case. Only one in the current sample and that from an older person she thinks challenged–as I am–by the shift key. She concluded: “Just as recession encourages people to put on ties (as I wrote last week), it also makes them look more kindly on the capital letter and the semicolon.”