The Return of the Semicolon (;)
Sam Roberts has written an article about the recent surprising appearance of the semicolon on New York City Transit public service placards. Read the article.
It’s interesting to note that the Sun Editorial Style Guide cautions against the use of semicolons: “Avoid using semicolons…. For conjoined sentences, consider rewriting the text as separate sentences.” This style guide, published in July 2006, is available to Sun Microsystems workers in HTML or PDF format. If you’re interested but are outside the company, Sun editor Janice Gelb recommends the publicly available version: Read Me First: A Style Guide for the Computer Industry.
Source: Sam Roberts, “Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location,” New York Times, Feb. 18, 2008. Thanks to John Maybury of goofbuster.com for the pointer.
