The semicolon is the most complex of all punctuation marks; it is also the most beautiful. Aesthetically dazzling, it comprises two separate symbols; simple, primordial. A hovering sun vertically pursued by fingernail moon; ovum overhanging an intrepid, eager sperm. A fresco of tension: the semicolon as seen by a sensitive semiotician is emblematic of such preadamite predicaments, preoccupations; it speaks of both relations and relationships. It speaks of contrapuntal pairs and the potential for concinnation; it is simultaneously a display of the chase, and a portent of foregone intimacy. At the center of a sentence the semicolon is linguistically dazzling. Assured, yet timid, it stands in for nothing more or less than confused communion—uncertain, yet undenied, connection. For these reasons, the semicolon is the most human of all punctuation marks.
The semicolon is the keystone of its completed sentence. Fulcrum for two almost independent fragments, two slightly indigent communiqués, it effervesces with import; simultaneously, it sits leaden on the page heavy with responsibility, ink the densest black. The semicolon says of its connected sentiments, “These two are close, though not quite one; these two are integral to each other, though rent by a schism: a small but seemingly impassable distance.” A semicolon is a lasso ensnaring stubborn asymptotes. No: a semicolon is the way two willful fragments have of coming together despite themselves; a semicolon is the way two willful fragments have of holding hands. The semicolon is syntactical flirtation between words.
A semicolon elicits from both sides of its sentence a subtextual soliloquy, in stereo: the same speech sighed by either side, proximal and distal; each fragment independently says of the other, “It feels as if I need you, but suppose I could stand alone.” Says of the other: “I want you, I do not want to stand alone.” Every semicolon is a conflation of autonomy and reliance.
Apropos of such uncertainty, the appearance of a semicolon is an open admission of authorial humility. In first drafts, it is matchmaking, the setting up of suitable sentences on a blind date. In a well-edited text, set in type, a semicolon is a small ceremony (in ancient days, before paper, indeed a setting in stone), a wedding of words. No, not quite. The semicolon of a sentence is a tenuous engagement between its swooning but stubborn halves. Above the page, the instantiation of a semicolon is every author’s way of admitting, “It’s plain these things should be together, but they remain defiant and childish.”
Because it is so human, however, the semicolon is more complicated even than all of this. It means more than its author intends.
One will find long lists in literature, anfractuous, and riddled with semicolons. Each one is an aside, explaining to its reader, “I know you want to breathe, but it’s not over yet”—the semicolon, always earnest and empathetic towards its reader, is the most polite of the punctuation marks. The arduous adventure through the ambages of such a sentence is a testament to the senseless persistence of life; each semicolon is a soft lamentation of fortitude and futility. “I know you want to breathe, but it’s not over yet.” Should there be a god in the heavens, in its accounting, the days of your life are separated by semicolons. A semicolon as serial comma is more than mere concatenation, it is a fermata heavy with sorrow. It is a respectful pause, a caesura which would be aptly filled with the comforting echo of a keening wail.
A sentence reads:
That day, he was born; once upon a time, somebody loved him; eventually, somebody left him; he kept on and on, however; later, his heart broke figuratively; later than that, his heart broke literally; in the end, of course, he died.
A semicolon as serial comma, used in description of human events, reads like a god’s apology. Once it is recognized as such, all an author’s various grotesqueries—the crimes every author so often perpetrates on the subjects of sentences—seem simultaneously, somehow, more egregious and more forgivable. The semicolon is a subtle, yet palliative melioration in the midst of melancholy. Read as such, every semicolon seems heaven’s recognition of the Problem of Evil, of the fact that continued existence is not necessarily a gift.
That day, he was born (I’m sorry) once upon a time, somebody loved him (I’m sorry) eventually, somebody left him (I’m sorry) he kept on and on, however (I’m sorry) later, his heart broke figuratively (I’m sorry) later than that, his heart broke literally (so sorry) in the end, of course, he died.
Indicative of an attachment between author and text, the semicolon is symbolic of a vertical relationship as vacillating and curious as the horizontal one for which it is responsible. Thus, the semicolon is three-dimensional—the only typographical figure to project its prominences beyond the page. As the visible manifestation of authorial empathy, of guilt over the welfare of sentence subjects, the semicolon is not merely the most human, but also the most humanitarian of the punctuation marks; the semicolon is the single compassionate character in the English language. Sympathetic, it can and often does care. Laden with malaise, conflicted yet so well-intentioned, assured and timid, the semicolon is a holophrastic (rather, holosyntactic) proxy for the whole of the human condition, as each of us—author of his own life, subject of every sentence written by living, by making mistake after mistake after mistake—composes a list which should be punctuated by contrition. Were they more than invisibly written, all our autobiographies would sound the same.
That day, I was born (I’m sorry) once upon a time, somebody loved me (I’m sorry) eventually, somebody left me (I’m sorry) I kept on and on, however (I’m sorry) later, my heart broke figuratively (I’m sorry) later than that, my heart broke literally (so sorry) in the end, of course, I died.
But the semicolon is not human simply because of its experience with sorrow, tribulation, and the often senseless persistence of life. The semicolon is human first and foremost because of its idiotic ambition. It thrives in the chaos of countless confused communions. The semicolon is human, first and foremost, because it so longs to connect the inconnectable, though its very existence is testament to the impossibility of completing that task, connection. Not for lack of effort, the semicolon of a sentence leaves its proximal and distal halves blended but never blent. The semicolon is human because it so strives to foster interiority when no such thing can truly take place. The semicolon is so human because it attempts to bring together the disparate and the desperate, the lonely: proximal and distal clauses, reader and author.
Indeed, in this latter effort, the semicolon often blurs the distinction between the two; the semicolon sometimes forces the reader to become author and determine the ambiguous relationship between those almost independent, asymptotic articles. In this way, the semicolon establishes a diagonal relationship to compliment its horizontal and vertical ones; in this way, and dependent on the spacetime position of its reader, the semicolon may, in actuality, be a four-dimensional figure. In a qualified instance of this complex, tertiary connection between/ conflation of reader and author, the semicolon of a sentence says, “Fill in the blanks.”
A sentence reads:
Even after she was gone, he loved her; he thought of her every even moment, every other moment, always on the downbeat of his heart.
The most human(e) reading of this semicolon is as a mere apology for communicating the truth of the situation; a sincere stab at condolence, from a godlike author to his smitten subject, in the matter of the affliction of unrequited love. “I’m sorry,” it might holosyntactically say. So understood, the sentence would appear in this manner:
Even after she was gone, he loved her; he thought of her every even moment, every other moment, always on the downbeat of his heart.
But the semicolon is not always so easily dispatched. When its fourth-dimension is taken into account, one begins to comprehend that the semicolon, in its ambitiousness, often only indicates options, proposes scenarios—an array from which the reader must become author and choose. Perhaps in this sentence the proximal, what precedes the punctuation, has caused what proceeds from it, the distal. As such:
Even after she was gone, he loved her; he thought of her every even moment, every other moment, always on the downbeat of his heart.
Or perhaps this particular sentence’s semicolon indicates flux. Semicolons can make sentences malleable; a semicolon can sometimes make its clauses modular and fungible where their order is concerned. The semicolon, in its multidimensionality—connecting two-dimensional textual elements, projecting from the page to connect author to text, even warping space-time to connect present reader to an often long-dead author—need not respect the flow of linear time and perhaps, in this case, it doesn’t. Perhaps the punctuation, this time, indicates a reversal: effect precedes cause; distal prompts proximal. Like this:
Even after she was gone, he loved her; he thought of her every even moment, every other moment, always on the downbeat of his heart.
Yet another possibility exists—a significant one. Maybe there is mutual causality implied by this semicolon. The semicolon, in its multidimensionality, in its humanity, is occasionally a paradoxical ergodic proposition. This implementation of the semicolon, the most recherché usage, understands and proposes to its reader that the line of its type is not enough, that other geometries are in order. Perhaps this semicolon is human enough to understand that some experiences—and thus some sentences—will seem like snakes devouring themselves, like the great Ouroboros. Some semicolons indicate sentences that are never truly finished, that just go on and on in alternation of implication—proximal causes distal, distal causes proximal, proximal causes distal, distal causes proximal, &c.—and which should really be written in circles, with semicolons also at the beginning and the end.
Even after she was gone, he loved her; he thought of her every even moment, every other moment, always on the downbeat of his heart.
