Semicolon: How a misunderstood punctuation mark can improve your writing, enrich your reading and even change your life

Cecelia Watson

ISBN 10: 0008291535 / ISBN 13: 9780008291532

Verlag: Fourth Estate, 2019

Semicolon: How a misunderstood punctuation mark can improve your writing, enrich your reading and even change your life This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. . Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 7719-9780008291532

Inhaltsangabe:

‘Fascinating… I loved this book; I really did’ David Crystal, Spectator

A biography of a much misunderstood punctuation mark and a call to arms in favour of clear expression and against stifling grammar rules.

Cecelia Watson used to be obsessive about grammar rules. But then she began teaching. And that was when she realized that strict rules aren’t always the best way of teaching people how to make words say what they want them to; that they are even, sometimes, best ignored.

One punctuation mark encapsulates this thorny issue more clearly than any other. The semicolon. Hated by Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut and Orwell, and loved by Herman Melville, Henry James and Rebecca Solnit, it is the most divisive punctuation mark in the English language, and many are too scared to go near it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care?

In this warm, funny, enlightening and thoroughly original book, Cecelia Watson takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the surprising history of the semicolon and explores the remarkable power it can wield, if only we would stop being afraid of it.

Forget the rules; you’re in charge. It’s time to make language do what you want it to.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor:

Cecelia Watson is a historian and philosopher of science, and a teacher of writing and the humanities. She is currently on Bard College’s Faculty in Language and Thinking. Previously she was an American Council of Learned Societies New Faculty Fellow at Yale University, where she was also a fellow of the Whitney Center for the Humanities and was jointly appointed in the humanities and philosophy departments.

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Semicolon: How a misunderstood punctuation ...
Verlag: Fourth Estate
Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
Einband: Hardcover
Illustrator: Anthony Russo
Zustand: Very Good