Trendy Punctuation

I recently found myself in a familiar scenario: editing a book that was filled with em dashes. It made me remember a piece I’d written a few years ago:

Attack of the Mad Dashes

All was not well in Editorial Land. The em dashes were taking over. This seemingly innocuous piece of punctuation was having a field day amongst a multitude of submissions. No other punctuation stood a chance against them.

The dashes had skewered the semicolons. Clobbered the commas. Eradicated the ellipses. And were, in general, inserting themselves ad nauseum into poetry and prose that didn’t even need the extra punctuation.

“Nobody remembers me anymore,” whispered the ellipsis

“No wonder,” said the semicolon. “You always were so wishy-washy. On the other hand, I am an extremely relevant mark, and I’m going to waste. Writers rarely use me, even when I’m needed. The number of sentence fragments and comma splices is ridiculous.”

“Now don’t go insulting me,” said the comma. “I’m easy to understand, and, besides, you don’t need a ridiculous keyboard shortcut to type any of us.”

Back at the computer, one valiant editor was cracking under the relentless dash barrage. “Here’s a hyphen that’s obviously meant to be an em dash,” she said. “Here’s one story that must have a dash in every other sentence. Surely there must be another way to emphasize a word or phrase. Stop! Stop!”

But the dashes kept coming.

 

Not only are dashes still tres chic, but ellipses are no longer sitting in the corner and sighing over how no one remembers them. Dashes and ellipses are everywhere, while the colon and semicolon have been sent into semiretirement. The New York Times even ran a wonderful article on the semicolon called “Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location.”

I think people like dashes and ellipses because they can be used in place of a comma, semicolon, or colon, and while they might not be the best choice, they’re usually not technically incorrect, either. They’re sort of like non-rule-based punctuation. Although many writers are apparently unable to understand the simple concept that the em dash is used to indicate an abrupt stop or interruption, while ellipses are for trailing speech or thoughts.

But don’t get me started on the en dash…. (Note use of four-point ellipsis for trailing thoughts that are a complete sentence.)

Of Ireland, Iceland, and Inkheart

A good friend of mine wrote to tell me that she has obtained her Irish citizenship and is planning to move to Ireland for a year or two to see how it goes. Let’s just say she is living my dream. Sigh.

I have never been to Ireland, and it is one of those places I’ve always wanted to go to, along with other countries that start with “I,” such as Italy, India, Indonesia, Israel, and Iceland, the latter of which has been somewhat of a fascination of mine for years. For some reason it just stirs something within me, this feeling that it’s my destiny to go there. I think I’m drawn mostly to the strange landscape, the sagas, and the folklore. The other day I had a very vivid dream that I was in Iceland, and when I woke up, I thought, if not now, then when? Now that the economy has tanked, perhaps it’s actually affordable… Then again, I also had a vivid dream that I was planning a trip to the moon, but when I woke up I realized it was based on the second episode of Doctor Who Season 3 in which the Judoon transport the hospital the Doctor and Martha Jones are in to the moon.

But penny scribblers like me can’t exactly afford taking off to another country to have an adventure. The best they can do for now is poke around and find books and videos and pretend. I unearthed this trailer for an Icelandic movie called Huldufolk 102.

According to folklore, the huldufolk came into being when Eve was washing her many children (I’ve also heard the same story starring Lilith instead of Eve). When God arrived (although, hey, isn’t God everywhere?), she hid the yet unwashed kids. God inspected the clean ones, then asked Eve if she had any others. Out of fear, she denied her existence, so God then declared: “What man hides from God, God will hide from man.” So I’m definitely ready to go to Iceland and meet them, or maybe shrink and live in a rock.

Or am I too much like Meggie’s aunt from Inkheart, someone who would rather read about adventures than have them? Anyway, I saw the movie yesterday. Don’t listen to those spoilsport movie reviewer naysayers; the acting is impressive, the sets and special effects are good, and the script is tight. I loved it, so did my son, and apparently so did the rest of the audience–they applauded afterward.

Oh, Those Brits!

I’ve been aware of the differences between British and American English from about the time I started reading. For some reason we had a number of British children’s books, mostly those written by E. Nesbit, when I was little. I remember being very indignant one time when my second-grade teacher marked “colour” and “favour” wrong on my spelling test. I knew those words were right, after all, I had seen them in books! You’d think the teacher would have had enough of a brain to say, Hmm, apparently this child has come across some British spellings! But apparently not.

Anyway, the latest book I was editing had to be Americanized. I have to say that I liked some of the Briticisms better than their American counterparts. Here are some of my favorites. Feel free to add to your vocabulary:

Alice band: headband
chat-up line: pickup line
chinwag: conversation
dustbin: garbage can
bobbly: those bally things that form on sweaters
bun fight: formal party (lots of women with hair in buns)
double-barrelled surname: hyphenated last name
made redundant: fired
winkle: draw out with effort

Yes, you have to hand it to the Brits for actually having a noun to describe sweater balls (for lack of an American term) or to coin “winkle,” referring to prying a winkle from its shell. And being “made redundant” sounds much less insulting than being “fired” (although you can also be “sacked”). I think it’s a shame that we don’t say “whilst” and have removed the s from forwards, backwards, and towards. However, I must admit I find “zits” more fitting than “spots.”