Britney Spears
Most people who think of Britney Spears do not have
punctuation on their mind. This is reality. Some of us grammarphiles, however,
are undistracted by matters of the flesh and can even keep our focus on grammar in
the face of such obvious distractions. (The rest of you may take pity on us!)
I refer to a column by sportswriter Bill Reynolds in The
Providence Journal of Saturday 16 February 2002. In Reynolds's usual
Saturday tradition, the column was composed mostly of one-liner bullets focused
mainly on sport but roaming as he felt the need. Midway down the list came this
bullet:
This one followed up later:
The grammatical problem here is his use of the semicolon, which is wrong by any standard you choose to apply. The two major uses of semicolons are to separate items in a series when at least one of them contains internal punctuation, and to separate two independent clauses that are not connected by a coordinate conjunction. An example of the first would be:
The party was attended by luminaries from New York, NY; Bergen County, NJ; and Stamford, CT.
An example of the second is:
Global warming may be on the horizon; some say it is already here.
If the elements of either construction are short enough, the semicolon may be replaced by a comma, provided that the meaning remains clear:
Let's not get into another "He said, she said."
The semicolon in Reynolds's second bullet did not fit either of these patterns, however. It wasn't separating a list with internal punctuation, for then the members would have been:
"Speaking of Britney Spears, she is the perfect star for these culturally schizophrenic times: she's the girl next door"
—and—
"if you live next door to a strip club"
which is nonsensical. It wasn't separating two independent clauses, for the
second element is a dependent clause.
What was the semicolon doing, then? I suspect that it was
being used as an extended pause to separate the two contrasting elements
"she's the girl next door" and "if you live next door to a strip
club." That function would have been better carried out with an em dash,
however:
"She's the girl next door—if you live next door to a strip club."
Now, I am not about to organize a society for the
prevention of semicolon abuse, for this stuff doesn't happen often—commas
are abused far more frequently, and genuinely need our protection in this day
and age. But if I were to start a semicolon society, this example could be used
to lead the grammatical charge.
Come to think of it, maybe I would have been better off
focusing on Britney instead.
The Grammar Guy
17 February 2002