We hear about the freakouts, the verbal lashings, the accidents and many more.
But what are some small things, things that have little consequence but are still infuriating or that drive you up the wall?
Here are some examples of my own:
- People flocking to the metro doors without leaving proper space for people to leave.
- Hearing the same 3 questions at work every time.
- People walking slow enough to pass but not letting you.
Mostly pedantic language things like people misusing “empathy” (it’s not a synonym to sympathy god-damn-it) and “disinterested” (not synonymous to uninterested god-damn-it). Misuse of semicolons is especially frustrating to me; there are so many people out there, who do not understand the weight difference a semicolon creates, and then thoughtlessly use it to seem smart (wink, wink).
Please expand on your understanding of semicolons
Sorry it took me so long to respond; I had to find my copy of The Elements of Style by Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. Here is a relevant quote from that excellent style guide:
Alright, back to me. A good example of what I’m referring to with “weight” is revealed when discussing how to properly use a semicolon with an ordinary colon. A semicolon is “heavier” than a colon; let me give you an example to illustrate this.
This is stylisticly bad, because the semicolon separates the clause “the people are angry” from the context (the scope, if you’re a programmer) of the colon: now the clause is equal to the rest of the sentence, “The answer: humanity is doomed,” instead of serving as part of the clause “The answer:” is describing. The correct—that is, the intended—sentence would simply be this:
One might think that this is illegal, as there is no conjunction, but, indeed, that presumption would be incorrect: “[…] humanity is doomed, the people are angry” is actually a list and the author of the sentence (me, muahahahaha) is using a literary device called asyndeton.
Here’s an example of asyndeton:
The incorrect version would be with a semicolon introducing the last element of the list.
Because the first example has only two elements, it can seem like one has to use a semicolon, but I think that the example given above shows how that is, in reality, quite absurd.
Alright, rant over, I hope this has sufficiently answered your question! Have a good day :)
;-)
Is English your native language? As a native Spanish speaker myself I find using semicolons correctly easy enough, but most english speakers prefer to avoid them and many just don’t understand them. I’ve even had teachers at uni mark me down for using them appropriately. I gave up almost entirely with their use when writing in English because of this.
English class is just a place to go to be wrong according to someone with no actual skills.
English itself is the result of numerous rounds of multilingual people mashing together the most efficient bits of other languages. The rules are so inconsistent that there kind of aren’t any. Also, written English and spoken English are two different languages with different rules, which is why you sound pompous when reading aloud formal essays and why you have to invent emoticons and even start to do rich formatting and change fonts to translate casual conversation into writing.
Take a persuasive writing class at an American college, typically numbered as ENG-112, they might touch on a few points about how to create effective arguments, they’re mostly going to grade on pedantic points of grammar, punctuation, spelling and MLA formatting. They’re not going to teach you a damn thing about teaching, partially because they’re obligated to generate test scores and testing a skill-based curriculum is more difficult than a pedantic rule following one, and mostly because they don’t have any actual teaching skills themselves.
Which is why there is a nationwide industry of your high school teacher teaching you how to use semicolons and a college professor marking you wrong for doing it that way.