Tag: Grammar

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Unpopular Punctuation: Colons and Semicolons

Harriet Phoenix

My GCSE English teacher had many fun little quirks, one being that he hated semicolons with a fiery vengeance. He considered them useless articles, easily and better replaced with other forms of punctuation.

Did anyone else have this? A teacher who just sort of religiously took against a random feature of the language? He was pretty good-humoured about it, but still. That’s weird, and I’m saying that.

I, however, use them all the time. Okay, partly because I formed a habit in response to the above just to be contrary; fair comment. However, the semicolon wouldn’t exist if it didn’t serve a purpose, so let’s dive in.

A semicolon is effectively a “super-comma” used to link two complete, but closely related sentences as if they were clauses in one complex sentence, just like I did in the preceding paragraph. “… just to be contrary,” and “fair comment,” are sentences in themselves, and I used a semicolon to smush them together into one. A comma won’t work, because they only join sentence clauses, not sentences.

Basically, when a comma doesn’t feel like enough but a full stop feels too much, throw a semicolon in there and see if that works.

Now, my former teacher probably would have told me to just make them separate sentences, but I feel that a full stop would create a full-stop-level break in the rhythm that I don’t want there. Other alternatives, such as ending the first sentence and beginning the next with a connective word, like “however…” or “because…” clearly wouldn’t work there. A semicolon does.

If a semicolon is a super-comma, then the super-semicolon is… uh… a colon. Colons are mainly used to end a complete sentence and introduce something else: the basic difference between this and a semicolon is that a semicolon links two complete sentences, whereas what follows a colon is dependant on what came before to make sense. Like just there, where using the word “this” makes what comes after the colon a sentence fragment without the part before the colon. If I’d instead written, “the basic difference between a colon and a semicolon…” then that would be a complete sentence and would have to be preceded by a semicolon. Confused yet? Great!

Colons are also used to introduce a list, with the list items separated by commas (e.g. the countries of the UK are: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales). However, where a comma is already in use the semicolon can once again step up as a super-comma to clarify things with an additional degree of separation. For example:

My favourite sci fi novels include: The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams; The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers; Trading in Danger, Elizabeth Moon; The Martian, Andy Weir; Earth Girl, Janet Edwards; and Leviathan’s Wake, James S.A. Corey.

(List is in no way comprehensive.)

Yes, I know; I could have used “by” instead of the commas and then commas instead of semicolons. Whatever, it’s just an example. The point is; far from being useless, the semicolon has specific uses, and gives you some flexibility in how you express yourself. It’s where the rising comma meets the falling full stop. Embrace it.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: She Said, Adverbedly

Harriet Phoenix

I feel like, if you give writing advice, somewhere you have to mention adverbs. It’s like a requirement, you know?

I had no idea how controversial adverbs were until University. One of my tutors had posted a helpful grammar guide that I now wish I’d control+C’d and saved somewhere. For one thing, I’d be able to quote directly the part that went something like, “Now, I know you’ve all been told in school to never, ever even think of using an adverb…”

This is where I looked very confused, because I had heard no such thing.

To be fair, I moved around a lot as a kid, so maybe I just missed the ‘ADVERBS: DO NOT’ talk every time, but I’m pretty sure they were introduced as just another kind of word. I’m sure there are people who will absolutely die on the Adverb Hill, but I’m pretty sure that to most people, adverbs are fine as long as you only use them as they should be used, and that sparingly.

A verb is a word for an action. An adverb is a word that describes the action. Thus, in the sentence, “She slept soundly,” “slept” is the verb while “soundly” is the adverb.

An adjective describes a noun. An adverb modifies an adjective. Thus, in the sentence, “The biscuit was somewhat stale,” “stale” is the adjective while “somewhat” is the adverb.

An adverb can also modify another adverb. Thus, in the sentence, “He checked his answers very thoroughly,” both “very” and “thoroughly” are adverbs.

Clearly, adverbs exist for a reason. However, Stephen King said, “The road to Hell is paved with adverbs,” Anton Chekhov advised writers to “cross out as many […] adverbs as you can,” and Mark Twain declared himself “dead to adverbs.” We can probably assume those folks know/ knew a thing or two about writing, so what’s the problem?

The main issue people have with adverbs is that they can usually be cut out altogether by trading in the word you’re modifying. For example, “He walked quickly” can become “He hurried,” “He hustled,” “He fled,” etc. Notice how these are not only quicker to read, they’re also more interesting and, sometimes, give an idea of what’s happening. Similarly, “The light was very bright” becomes “The light was blinding.” Even in the adverb-on-adverb example above, “very thoroughly” could be “meticulously” or “obsessively.”

Brilliant as this may be when you’re making cuts to fit that wordcount you’re already pushing, it does have the effect of rendering the adverb as, “that thing you do when you can’t think of a better verb.” This does not add to its perceived coolness.

It doesn’t help when people misuse adverbs by throwing them in where they don’t add anything. Don’t say, “She laughed happily,” because laughs are usually happy; the fact of laughter makes us assume happiness. Adverbs should tell us something we wouldn’t assume from the word being used. Go ahead and tell us she laughed “bitterly,” “sarcastically,” or even “nastily,” though. That’s new information; it challenges the assumption we made when you told us she was laughing.

The bottom line is this; as a writer, every word you use needs to be there for a reason. If deleting your adverb doesn’t change the meaning of a sentence, it’s clearly not earning its place and needs to go.

So that’s adverbs done. Phew. I’ll do something fun next time, I promise.