Semicolon
The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark
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Narrated by:
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Pam Ward
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By:
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Cecelia Watson
About this listen
A pause-resisting, existential romp through the life and times of the world’s most polarizing punctuation mark.
The semicolon. Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Orwell detest it. Herman Melville, Henry James, and Rebecca Solnit love it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care?
In Semicolon, Cecelia Watson charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark, which for years was the trendiest one in the world of letters. But in the 19th century, as grammar books became all the rage, the rules of how we use language became both stricter and more confusing, with the semicolon a prime victim.
Taking us on a breezy journey through a range of examples - from Milton’s manuscripts to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail” to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep - Watson reveals how traditional grammar rules make us less successful at communicating with each other than we’d think. Even the most die-hard grammar fanatics would be better served by tossing the rule books and learning a better way to engage with language.
Through her rollicking biography of the semicolon, Watson writes a guide to grammar that explains why we don’t need guides at all and refocuses our attention on the deepest, most primary value of language: true communication.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Written 200 years after Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln shared a birthday on February 12, 1809, this insightful account sheds new light on two men who changed the way we think about the meaning of life and death. Award-winning journalist Adam Gopnik's unique perspective, combined with previously unexplored stories and figures, reveals two men planted firmly at the roots of modern views and liberal values.
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Connecting Darwin and Lincoln
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Adam Gopnik
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Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies
- How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
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- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
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The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.” In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo.
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Excellent!
- By Virgil Tracy on 06-03-23
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Machiavelli
- The Art of Teaching People What to Fear
- By: Patrick Boucheron
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
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In a series of poignant vignettes, a preeminent historian makes a compelling case for Machiavelli as an unjustly maligned figure with valuable political insights that resonate as strongly today as they did in his time.
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Great Tester
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Parfit
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- By: David Edmonds
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
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Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius.
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Loved it
- By Anna Karenina on 07-05-23
By: David Edmonds
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Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
- By: Umberto Eco
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
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In this exhilarating book, we accompany Umberto Eco as he explores the intricacies of fictional form and method. Using examples ranging from fairy tales and Flaubert, Poe and Mickey Spillane, Eco draws us in by means of a novelist's techniques, making us his collaborators in the creation of his text and in the investigation of some of fiction's most basic mechanisms.
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big ideas presented simply
- By Ashton on 01-31-14
By: Umberto Eco
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Frank Ramsey
- A Sheer Excess of Powers
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When he died in 1930 aged 26, Frank Ramsey had already invented one branch of mathematics and two branches of economics, laying the foundations for decision theory and game theory. Keynes deferred to him; he was the only philosopher whom Wittgenstein treated as an equal. Had he lived he might have been recognized as the most brilliant thinker of the century. This amiable shambling bear of a man was an ardent socialist, a believer in free love, and an intimate of the Bloomsbury set. For the first time Cheryl Misak tells the full story of his extraordinary life.
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Great biography, not appropriate as an audiobook
- By Scott on 06-18-24
By: Cheryl Misak
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The Novel of the Century
- The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables
- By: David Bellos
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Putting a century of scholarship on one of the world's most enduring popular novels into accessible, narrative form, this new approach to a classic of world literature is written for a wide general audience. Packed full of information about the book's origins and later career on stage and screen, The Novel of the Century brings to life the extraordinary story of how Victor Hugo managed to write his novel of the downtrodden despite a revolution, a coup d'etat, and political exile.
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how hard to write a book
- By James Grohs on 08-06-24
By: David Bellos
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The Art of the Novel
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- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
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Kundera brilliantly examines the work of such important and diverse figures as Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Musil. He is especially penetrating on Hermann Broch, and his exploration of the world of Kafka's novels vividly reveals the comic terror of Kafka's bureaucratized universe. Kundera's discussion of his own work includes his views on the role of historical events in fiction, the meaning of action, and the creation of character in the postpsychological novel.
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Informative and Inspiring
- By Mo on 11-27-21
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The Art of Fiction
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
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Ayn Rand discusses how a writer combines abstract ideas with concrete action and description to achieve a unity of theme, plot, characterization, and style, the four essential elements of fiction. Here, too, are Rand's illuminating analyses of passages from famous writers, rewrites of scenes from her own works, and fascinating rules for building dramatic plots and characters with depth.
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Get Stein on Writing
- By Lois on 12-04-09
By: Ayn Rand
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The Mother Tongue
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
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With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson - the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent - brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience, and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't) to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.
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More satire than history
- By Barbara Kindle Customer on 12-18-15
By: Bill Bryson
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Knowing What We Know
- The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic
- By: Simon Winchester
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From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom?
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Colorful anecdotes but tiring after a while.
- By reader on 05-03-23
By: Simon Winchester
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Emerson
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Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.
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Finally!
- By Douglas on 08-15-14
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What listeners say about Semicolon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Max
- 03-10-21
Thoughtful and entertaining exploration
As someone who has struggled with a learning disability and has been equally mocked and praised for my punctuation, while never understanding the rules, this book has been a form of vindication! I loved it. It is written clearly while being entertaining for the casual listener. Repositioning punctuation for a contemporary context.
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- Robert D. Walker
- 09-06-19
Awesome
It is impossible to write a.book about a semicolon but it’s awesome that this lady did it. It was so interesting that l had a hard time putting it down. And now I use it easily. This boo goes beyond setting rules. It helps you understand that you can’t write hampered by rules
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2 people found this helpful
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Why many writers and students deride semicolons
Narration is clear, but I do not appreciate the sarcastic tone.
Nor do I believe that proper use of semicolon is all that difficult to learn or that preoccupation with using correct grammar stanches creativity.
Author’s attitude explains why so many students who have taken English 101 evidence poor writing skills.
This audio is important in that it unflinchingly mocks those of studiously attending to and using this and many other useful punctuation marks.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 02-01-23
Well written and insightful; for all writers
Overall, this book is an opinionated essay about the past and present use of semicolons and of their perception. It is somewhat straightforward in that goal. The topic of semicolons is very niche topic, however the author uses the issue at hand to address a wider concern about the nature of language; she believes that language is foremost about communication and that rules have stifled that ability. Whether or not you agree with her, the book is a fine read because it opens up an important discussion about writing, and likely expands your grammatical ability as a result.
A potential issue is that it is an advanced read, and you will likely find little value in the book without high literacy skill.
I appreciate that the author does not force you into dogmatically preaching her beliefs, she provides ample direct sources and examples, and that she does not use unfair arguments. Additionally, the book is concise. It's about 4 hours long, and writing about a single key on the keyboard for longer than that would be monumentally ridiculous, but this length is enough to fully support its message.
I am only an amateur writer, and I went into this book hoping for a quick and replicable rule on the use of semicolons, since I had faced so much confusion around them before. Unfortunately, this book does not provide that; it is still 4 hours long after all. But I don't believe that this is the fault of the author. The book itself discusses how that kind of concrete use likely isn't possible for the semicolon. What struck me the most was my realization that the commonly accepted rules for English were created by authors who published style books, ones which were made for profit, and which competed with other publishers, making English grammar undeniably malleable in some way.
Ultimately however, this book did allow me to come to my own conclusion about semicolons, and my use of them in this review should be proof of that. It is intrinsically an unnecessary addition to English grammar, but a helpful tool that can be used to change the way an author's voice is eccentuated. It is also useful as a kind of "grammatical synonym" to a comma, colon, or occasional period, and slightly changes the sentence for the purpose of flow.
In regard to the audio, the narrator is simply excellent. She never falters in pronunciation or in enthusiasm, and I feel as if it the author herself reading the book aloud. It is difficult to show how semicolons are used without providing text, but because her inflection is so great, you can hear the impact that a semicolon had on that sentence. It is truly an impressive feat to do that, and I wish more narrators had that kind of ability.
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- Garry
- 09-30-20
Let’s hear it for the semicolon; a subtitle
Great research into the life of the semicolon; written with humor and a touch of sarcasm here and there.
Pam Ward did an outstanding job of narration; making a wonderful text come to like.
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- Patent Guy
- 09-07-24
Somewhat misleading title
This was less a history of the semicolon as it was the author’s setting out her views about grammar and punctuation in general, with a strong denigration of rules in favor of stylistic choices.
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- David Carta
- 09-21-24
great for grammar nerds!
parts of this book for difficult in the audiobook format because it required looking at punctuation which obviously is not visible in the audio format.
there's some interesting stories and vignettes that I will take away, but if a grammar punctuation book is your cup of tea I would suggest to get the book as opposed to the audiobook.
the performance was fantastic.
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- Jeffrey D
- 08-15-19
Silly me; I thought it was about semicolons
This book should be entitled My many marvelous opinions. I think the title of the actual book is misleading.
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21 people found this helpful