Semi colons

[swee'pea99]

Anyway, Kurt Vonnegut thought it was smartypants.

I guess, then, Kurt would have to render it thus:

Use them sparingly. Less is more.

It's ok. But it's better with the ;

 

[Dan B]

Anyway, Kurt Vonnegut thought it was smartypants

So it goes.

"I would hate them to disappear. I write by rhythms, both the rhythm of the meaning and the rhythm of the - it's not exactly my spoken voice, it's the voice inside my head, and that needs a lot of different punctuation marks."

Yes, I was going to say something similar but less eloquent. I have little or no formal training in grammar, but I read a lot. When I write I aim to get the cadences that I'm used to from reading, and punctuation is a tool to do that.

'I suppose you're an expert at theatre words?' said Granny sarcastically.
'They'd have to be the proper sort, otherwise people would suspect.'
'Shouldn't be too difficult,' said Nanny Ogg dismissively. 'I've been studyin'
it. You go tumpty-tumpty-tumpty.'
Granny gave this some consideration.

'There's more to it than that, I believe,' she said. 'Some of those speeches
were very good. I couldn't understand hardly any of it.'

 

[Yellow Fang]

Maybe now is a good time to ask a question that has been puzzling me for a long time. Should the word "so" be preceded by a comma or a semicolon at the start of a clause? It's not and, or, but, while or yet. I'm not really sure whether it usually introduces a dependent clause. It tends to get used like therefore which introduces an independent clause, and thus is preceded by a semicolon.

I had to get up at dawn; therefore I went to bed early.
Therefore seems clumsy and over the top.

I had to get up at dawn; so I went to bed early.
Semicolon looks wrong; besides wouldn't so be redundant?

I had to get up at dawn, so I went to bed early.
Looks right, but is it?

So I went to bed early, I had to get up at dawn.
Switched the clauses around, but now it doesn't make sense, which it should if the comma was introducing a dependent clause.

I went to bed early, because I had to get up at dawn.
Because does take a comma because it does introduce a dependent clause.

Because I had to get up at dawn, I went to bed early.
Switching the clauses around still makes sense.

This seems to indicate that "so" should take a semicolon, but it seems too small a word. I'm troubled

 

[swee'pea99]

FWIW, it seems pretty clear to me that so doesn't need a comma, much less a semi colon.

I had to get up at dawn so I went to bed early.

looks fine to me.

I needed apples so I went to the greengrocer.

...is there a problem?