Superheroes are all the rage these days. It turns out that society loves a good story about someone saving the day. There’s something that keeps us interested when we see people who on the outside might seem ordinary, but once they change their clothes they become someone extraordinary. We love them! Batman. Wonder Woman. Superman. Sailor Moon. Spiderman. The Hulk. Batgirl. Ironman.
Thinking about people who play different roles got me thinking about a conversation I had with an editor friend about semicolons. Here’s the gist of our conversation about semicolons: either you know how to use them and seem like a superhero, or you avoid them altogether. But what about the lesser known role of the semicolon, the role that it only performs when absolutely necessary and when other punctuation marks can’t take on the job…I’m talking about the supercomma!
Supercomma definition
We know that in the punctuation world a comma separates or sets off information. And the semicolon links information. But what happens when a comma needs some extra help when it is separating items in a list? It calls in the semicolon! A semicolon works to separate phrases or clauses in a sentence that already contains internal punctuation. AKA: the supercomma.
Fun fact: The semicolon is stronger than a comma, but can’t do the work of a period.
Aside: One thing that I find interesting is the difference in opinions about the semicolon. As Mary Norris suggests in her chapter “A Dash, A Semicolon, and a Colon Walk into a Bar” from her book Between You &Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, British folks (including Canadians like me) like the semicolon, whereas Americans tend to avoid the formality of them. Interesting! On the other hand, American Patricia T. O’Conner has no problem with the semicolon in her book Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English.
Supercomma
It’s probably overkill to use the name supercomma, when semicolon works just as well, but it’s definitely not as fun. What is a supercomma (after all of this buildup)? Here are some examples:
- My English teacher, Ms. Ireland, had never been out of the country; my Biology teacher, Mr. Finn, was actually Irish and traveled all over the UK; but my Art teacher, Mrs. Mave, was the most travelled of them all.
- My next travel adventure, which I hope to take very soon, will most likely include stops in Paris, France; Vienna, Austria; and Budapest, Hungary.
- My favourite bookstore has new, local, and bestselling books on the main level; children, general fiction, and travel books on the top level; and nonfiction books on the lower level.
Was the work super? Maybe not. But using a comma to separate these phrases would have muddled with the clarity of the ideas. This is a job for the semicolon.
Send out the supercomma signal
Are supercommas for everyday, every page? Not really. Like all superheroes, they aren’t necessary to include all of the time. In fact, if the problem can be solved without the hero, that’s probably best. But if your sentence starts to get phrases and clauses with punctuation in a list, you better call in the extraordinary. The supercomma.
As always, punctuation is a tool for writers to add clarity into their writing. If you find yourself constructing a sentence that needs something more powerful than a comma to separate lists, don’t be afraid to try the semicolon. It can handle the job!
Happy writing.
Photo by Esteban López on Unsplash