"He shewed himself so intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of one poet, and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other; he repeated with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a broke heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry; and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly."
--Jane Austen
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Miss Austen has semicolon and comma abuse issues.
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5 comments:
You know what's even better about that sentence? It actually begins a full 8 lines of text earlier.
Conclusion: Austen = bad for you
Readers two hundred years in the future will have to find some of our punctuation misguided too. I can think of about 3000 examples.
yes all the writing handbooks say, don't use a coordinating conjunction after a semi-colon to join independent clauses. But writers do it all the time! David Mamet does it all the time.
which means writing handbooks are silly. there aren't any real punctuation rules. the handbook people just want us to think there are.
okay I guess i was taking your austen comment far too literally.
(okay i guess it's obvious now I've been reading too many freshman comp. essays).
You know what's bad for you, Canary Boy? Talkin' smack to me!
[cue worst trash-talk ever]
Your fantasy basketball team smells of elderberries.
speaking of semi-colons, and no this is not blatant self-promotion, but check out the Lowell letter I quote at the end of my December 2nd posting on my blog. He does it well.
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