ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

I have never used or bothered much about the correct use of semi colons, feeling that at best their use is contentious. However I would appreciate members' opinions re the verse below. I have used one semi colon and one comma. Should both be semi colons or perhaps both commas or doesn't it matter?

Thanks ... Wazza


No tear was shed. No head was bowed
in sadness; for the life allowed
to pass unnoticed, weep unheard.
No stone inscribed with deed or word.

There's a small book published by University of NSW by Australian poet and writer Mark Tredinnick, it's called The Little Green Grammar Book. Very informative on the use of things like semi-colons.

What you have there, Warren, looks OK to me.

Nice words Warren.

Terry

I'll check it out thanks Neville.

Thanks Terry.

Wazza

G'day Waz, yeah that looks fine to me - I'll email you something Heather sent me recently on use of the semi-colon that came from David Campbell.

Cheers, Marty

ps. Apparently in Greek a semi colon is used as a question mark;

I 've got enought problems with my normal colon without inventing a half one !!!



Bob

If you have problems it might not be normal ?

The semi-colon and comma are fine, Wazza, but there is a problem with the last line.

The last line is not a sentence. Therefore, there should be another semi-colon at the end of the second last line, instead of a full stop.

If you said "No stone was inscribed with deed or word" you would have a sentence, and the full stop at the end of the previous line would be correct - but then it wouldn't scan, of course.

"Inscribed" as you have it is not a verb - I think it is called a participle - and without a verb, you cannot have a sentence. "Was" is a verb (I suppose the verb becomes "was inscribed"), and would turn the phrase into a sentence. Semi-colons are great for situations like this.

Good one Bob. I have actually had part of mine removed so maybe semi is fitting.

Neville ... not really sure what's normal and what's not these days. My grandfather would often trot out this little saying. "All the world's a little strange except for you and me and I'm not sure about you."

Stephen, I know what you're saying. Inscribed' is a participle, a past participle actually, made by the addition of 'ed' to the verb inscribe. As you point out the addition of an auxilliary verb such as 'was' or 'is' etc would complete the sentence grammatically but again as you've said, it would then be out of sync. When written as I have written it, I believe it assumes the auxilliary 'was' to be understood. Poetic licence???
Cheers all ... Wazza

I think it reads all right. That's not the problem. The difficulty is with the punctuation. By finishing the second line with a full stop, you force the last line to stand alone as a complete sentence, which it isn't. A semi-colon at the end of the second last line would solve the problem from the perspective of punctuation.