Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.
Kurt Vonnegut
Here is a lesson in creative writing
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I use semi-colons; one of the better punctuation marks. Kurt Vonnegut didn’t like what he didn’t like. I don’t like what I don’t like. The rest of the world can like what they like.
I hate commas. The look like a little suck to me. But I use them when the pause doesn’t warrant a glorious semi-colon.
One wonders what Mr Vonnegut thought of the writing of Prof. Vladimir Nabakov; or of Prof. J.R.R. Tolkein; or of Prof. C.S. Lewis; or of Prof. Raymond Williams; or of Prof. Toni Morrison; or of Prof. Joyce Carol Oates; or of Prof. Isaac Asimov; or… Well, let’s just say that there are (if I am counting correctly) fourteen college-and-above-level degrees among those seven creative writers; and I’m I’m counting incorrectly, there are more, not less.
Sadly, I am giving away my eleven years of higher education; my non-English background, because American English as the ne plus ultra of creative writing is beneath my scholarly mien; my ability to actually use all of the characters on a standard Roman-alphabet typewriter keyboard, which I was capable of doing before college; and, perhaps most of all, my limbering-up exercises for the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest.
I see what you did there. 😀
Nicely done, sir.
This only proves that people, no matter how smart, say dumb things.
It’s always a good idea for smart people to be reminded about that likelihood, A.
I think so too, but.., people get mad at me for pointing it out.
Must be because I’m a smartass or something. 😉
If something is genuinely hermaphroditic, i.e. having the reproductive functions of both sexes, how can it possibly be transvestite? No matter which sex it dresses as (assuming it wears clothes at all), it is dressed appropriately for one of its sets of plumbing. The metaphor is as muddled as the message is wrong.
Meanwhile, I shall go on using semicolons whenever I please, joyfully, vengefully, and taking a petty, mean-spirited satisfaction in any distress I may be causing to Kurt Vonnegut’s unsainted ghost. I respect semicolons; I know what they are for; I wrangle them expertly, and have no pity for any goof who can’t be arsed to learn how. And I did not have to attend any college to learn, so Vonnegut is wrong there, too.
tl;dr:
Vonnegut. I don’t understand why people use semicolons, so they must be dumb!
Me. Nertz to you, ignoramus!
I just checked my current WIP and I have only five (in 50k words); therefore, I better pick up the pace!