Proper Use of Semicolon in New York Subways Hailed by Riders, Writers
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 02.20.08 | 11:55 AM ET
One sentence on a public service ad in the New York Subway has turned Neil Neches, a writer in the New York City Transit agency’s marketing and service information department, into an unlikely hero. In an effort to get riders to not leave newspapers strewn about subway cars, Neches wrote: “Please put it in a trash can; that’s good news for everyone.” The tale of his properly-placed semicolon is currently the No. 1 most e-mailed story at the New York Times.
From the Times’ story:
Louis Menand, an English professor at Harvard and a staff writer at The New Yorker, pronounced the subway poster’s use of the semicolon to be “impeccable.”
Lynne Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation,” called it a “lovely example” of proper punctuation.
Geoffrey Nunberg, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, praised the “burgeoning of punctuational literacy in unlikely places.”
Allan M. Siegal, a longtime arbiter of New York Times style before retiring, opined, “The semicolon is correct, though I’d have used a colon, which I think would be a bit more sophisticated in that sentence.”
The linguist Noam Chomsky sniffed, “I suppose Bush would claim it’s the effect of No Child Left Behind.”
On behalf of World Hum, Mr. Neches, I salute you, too.
Related on World Hum:
* Mexico City Transit Goes Grope-Free
* One Day, Two Men and 468 New York City Subway Stations
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
John M. Edwards 02.20.08 | 4:15 PM ET
Hi Michael:
Grammar; punctuation; pshaw! Consulting Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style,” I think, after crying at the ending of “Charlotte’s Web” (same guy: E.B.), that a dramatic comma would have worked better for the hurled slogo on the vapid eclectricky undertrainy. How many people have been zapped by the third rail of strict grammarians?
To belabor the point.
Feeling as foolish as Stuart Little, I pick up my Number 2 pencil, gnaw it a bit, and practice semicolonic cancer. The worst thing I can think of to say about this is: weird. My pizza delivery person resembles Michael Rennie from “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” As do I; as do we all. It’s all in the proper placement, of, the menacing Van Dyke beard—Imhotep style.
Churchill, whilst fighting off the “black dog of depression”—any Led Zep fans out there?—, came up with a humdinger of a bon mot. Railing against the rule against ending a sentence with a preposition, he pundited with John Bull rage, “That is a pedantry up with which I will not put!”
While placing my daily call put on the Big Board, I couldn’t help but come up with my own properly worded thingie: “It may looks like a Manet; It costs Monet.” (Note the I in It is capped in both). Uh, now, I feel bad. That didn’t quite work. My cheeks are flushing with shame and embarrassment. I’ve lost my verbal dexterity.
Next time I’ll stick with a simple tongue-lashing.