Archive for the ‘kurt vonnegut’ tag
On Semicolons #
August 12th, 2008 | In Worth Knowing
I wasn’t aware of the massive unpopularity of semicolons among male literary types; apparently only the effete are supposed to use them.
Ben McIntyre, writing in the Times of London a couple of months later, added to the collection of semicolon snubbers: Kurt Vonnegut called the marks “transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing.” Hemingway and Chandler and Stephen King, said McIntyre, “wouldn’t be seen dead in a ditch with a semi-colon (though Truman Capote might). Real men, goes the unwritten rule of American punctuation, don’t use semi-colons.”