ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

G'day All

One use of the semi-colon that I like is from "The Man from Snowy River":

There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;

Paterson has used the commas here to make a parenthetical statement (one that can be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence) and the semi-colon to indicate the flow into the next related thought:

But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up -
He would go wherever horse and man could go.

As an aside, it is interesting how many people bugger this up and put an 'and' before 'the old man' when they are performing (Slim Dusty's song version is one such example). The punctuation used here indicates that 'Harrison' and 'the old man' are one and the same, not two separate characters.

Regards


John Peel

When the forum takes on this role of “Educator” i.e. talking about the correct use of punctuation etc, etc I realise the gap in my education, you don’t need a lot of comma’s and such when you are driving a bulldozer or digging up Iron Ore. I am not only using some punctuation but also trying to put them in the right place, If you see any glaring misuse a poke in the ribs would be taken in good faith.

TTFN

Dave I wouldn't have a clue how to drive a bulldozer.

Heather

We learn something new every day, hey Dave. I never used to drive any machinery but get to play on a lot of big boys toys at the park so we can both master this.

Bob

A semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought.

When a semicolon is used to join two or more ideas (parts) in a sentence, those ideas are then given equal position or rank.

Bob Pacey wrote:dependent claus

Was waiting for some "Dad Joke" about Santa's Missus

Marty

Dave Smith wrote:When the forum takes on this role of “Educator” i.e. talking about the correct use of punctuation etc, etc I realise the gap in my education, you don’t need a lot of comma’s and such when you are driving a bulldozer or digging up Iron Ore. I am not only using some punctuation but also trying to put them in the right place, If you see any glaring misuse a poke in the ribs would be taken in good faith.

TTFN

I'm with you mate, didn't use them lugging furniture around.

Bob Pacey wrote:We learn something new every day, hey Dave. I never used to drive any machinery but get to play on a lot of big boys toys at the park so we can both master this.

Bob

A semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought.

When a semicolon is used to join two or more ideas (parts) in a sentence, those ideas are then given equal position or rank.

Lost me already Bob, I don't know even basic punctuation & chuck them in where I might think they go.

I had 3 different ladies from our writers group punctuate one of my poems & ALL BLOODY 3 had different punctuation suggestions, ya think I wasn't confused. I even had one punctuated by my sister-in-law (who is a school teacher) for a comp & the judge remarked the punctuation let me down, so if this is the case I can't see me ever winning any major bush poetry comps. I've tried reading 'punctuation for dummies' but it all just makes my head spin.

G/day Dave/David,
I reckon that punctuation is a very inexact science, a bit like politics everybody has a different opinion.

Cheers Mates,

Terry

Stephen wrote:

Did Henry really write it like that? It's an orgy of semi-colons, really, isn't it.

I am often baffled by what seems to me to be the excessive amount of punctuation and (in some cases the different forms) used in older books, especially poetry books. In many cases I think it was probably the editor or even the printers trying to make the printed word look better for more impressive rather than the original writing of the author. Does anyone know what :- or even ;- means or meant? ( Because of the modern keyboard, the dash illustrated here is in fact wrong and should be the longer em dash.) I have just read four lines of an old poem that contains five exclamation marks where today the thinking is that exclamation marks should be used very judiciously if at all!
By the same token, I recently read a complete book of poetry, the author of which shall remain nameless, that, as far as I could tell, did not contain one comma.
A rather lengthy book too!

Vic

Thanks a heap Heather, and all who have contributed to this topic.

I may be able to use the 'semi' now. I was a little afraid of it before. The advice I have had here is very practical; just what I needed. I wrote two poems last night. Now I have to type them in and watch out for the punctuaion.