Product Description
A biography of a much misunderstood punctuation mark and a call to arms in favour of clear expression and against stifling grammar rules. Cecelia Watson used to be obsessive about grammar rules. But then she began teaching. And that was when she realised that strict rules arent always the best way of teaching people how to make words say what they want them to that they are even sometimes best ignored. One punctuation mark encapsulates this thorny issue more clearly than any other. The semicolon. Hated by Stephen King Hemingway Vonnegut and Orwell and loved by Herman Melville Henry James and Rebecca Solnit it is the most divisive punctuation mark in the English language and many are too scared to go near it. But why When is it effective Have we been misusing it Should we even care In this warm funny enlightening and thoroughly original book Cecelia Watson takes us on a whistlestop tour of the surprising history of the semicolon and explores the remarkable power it can wield if only we would stop being afraid of it. Forget the rules youre in charge. Its time to make language do what you want it to.