Yes, a geek post. You already know from the title whether you want to read this one.
Now that nine tenths of you have fled to Facebook, I address the select few who remain. My argument is right there in my overdramatic title: that an insufficiently recognised merit of the semicolon is its potential for ambiguity.
What is this power? Like any good storyteller, I’m going to make you wait to find out. (Annoyed?) First, we’ll define some terms.
The Use of a Semicolon
One of the semicolon’s principal uses is to join two independent clauses without a conjunction. You already know this, but let’s clear up what an independent clause and a conjunction are:
Independent Clauses
The old trick is, if it could stand on its own as a complete sentence, it’s an independent clause. Example: “I am tired but feel better.”
“I am tired.” – This could form a complete sentence; it is an independent clause.
“Feel better.” – This would be a sentence fragment if set out on its own; it is a dependent clause.
Conjunctions
The two clauses in the example above are joined together by a conjunction: “but”.
Coordinating conjunctions (for, and, etc.) and subordinating conjunctions (until, whereas, etc.) tie together clauses, demonstrating how one relates to the other. For example, “but” in the example above establishes contrast. Obvs.
What’s a Sentence?
One gets the impression that, in modern commercial fiction, the definition of a sentence is “a string of text no longer than one printed line.” Keep it short! You’re competing with tweets!
Hoary stalwarts like me prefer to think of a sentence as being the encapsulation of a single complete idea.
(The above definition will not satisfy partisans of the intentional run-on sentence; these headlong persons have no use for semicolons anyway.)
Under this definition, there is a tendency for sentences to get longer proportionally to the complexity of the idea you wish to convey. But even a long multi-clause monster is meant to encapsulate one idea.
This is a key point to my argument: (a) a long multi-clause sentence, and (b) the same content subdivided into shorter sentences, may convey the same information, but (a) and (b) will not mean the same thing. That the author has chosen to load this information into a single sentence signals that it is to be taken as a whole, as one idea. Sometimes you need the length to say what you want, as you want.
Joining Independent Clauses
If the thought you aim to encapsulate is complex, you may wish to write a sentence that contains two independent clauses. Here is an example, albeit not that complex: “I am happy. She is unhappy.”
How to join these two independent clauses? One way is with a conjunction, which requires us to decide on the relationship between the clauses. Let’s say we intend a contrast:
With a subordinating conjunction: “Although I am happy, she is unhappy.”
With a coordinating conjunction: “I am happy, but she is unhappy.”
Next, examples of how changing the conjunction alters the relationship of the clauses:
“Until I am happy, she is unhappy.”
“I am happy, so she is unhappy.”
“I am happy, for she is unhappy.”
“I am happy, yet she is unhappy.”
Each conjunction makes a relationship plain: cause-and-effect, before-after, etc. The intended nuance is presented to the reader, crystal clear, a done deal. But…
What if you don’t want the nuance to be plain?
Ambiguous Relationships
As noted above, a semicolon can join independent clauses into a single sentence with no conjunction.
Example: “I am happy; she is unhappy.”
“Just convert the semicolon to a period,” scold the lobbyists bankrolled by Big Period. Ignore them! What the author has joined together, let no period put asunder. The fact this is one sentence, not two, signals to the reader our intent that these clauses form a single idea.
However, lacking a conjunction, the relationship between clauses is left unstated.
This invites the reader to wonder, “The author has joined these independent clauses into a single multipart idea; they therefore have some relation to each other; what is that relationship?” This is what I mean when I say the semicolon’s power is in imparting ambiguity onto a sentence. It leaves it to the reader to intuit how these ideas relate.
The Joy of Discovery, or (Wait for It) “Show, Don’t Tell”
Many take it as a truism that there is more aesthetic enjoyment (greater “engagement”) when the reader is allowed to intuit, from a description of Jessica’s outfits, that she is a sloppy dresser, than there would be if the author simply wrote, “Jessica was a sloppy dresser.” Show us her habits; don’t just tell us about them.
How many would be shocked to learn that the unassuming conjunction is, in fact, a stealthy tell!? But it is. It tells the reader how to understand the relationship between two clauses, rather than engaging the mind in understanding this.
On a level likely to fly below the radar of many readers, occasional semicolon use—to bring ideas into relation without spelling out that relation—can enhance the pleasure of reading in the same way: instead of spoon-feeding the reader, it can offer those clauses as puzzle pieces to slot into place.
So, up with the semicolon. Vive le semicolon. Fight me.