dragonfly editorial

NY Times: Celebrating the Semicolon

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, February 21st, 2008

The NY Times writes on the New York Public Transit System’s proper use of the semicolon.

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.”

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.

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