The relevant sentence: “Please put it [your newspaper] in a trash can; that’s good news for everyone.”
The use of a semicolon in this instance is indeed correct, but I would prefer a period or an em dash. Either would add more punch to the final phrase.
And Allan M. Siegal, longtime arbiter of NYT style, is quoted as arguing for a colon: “The semicolon is correct, though I’d have used a colon, which I think would be a bit more sophisticated in that sentence.â€
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 2:11 pm and is filed under Punctuation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.



“I’ve worked with the staff at Dragonfly for years, and I trust their editing completely. We’ve used them on federal proposals, commercial proposals, IT documentation, marketing collateral … you name it. They are especially helpful on large projects, when we need a team of editors to get a lot done in a short timeframe. They also have great writers who can handle everything from white papers to case studies. Dragonfly is our editorial dream team!".
Latest Comments