A fraught time for punctuation

One Dog Barking: an occasional column by John Dineen

I understand if you’ve overlooked what I think we can rightly call the chaotic state of punctuation. I mean, can we talk about this?

Perhaps you lean toward the view that “anything goes” punctuation is low in the World Hierarchy of Problems; I get that. But big ideas are assembled from small parts, and precision when you start improves where you finish.

A confession: I’ve read Cecelia Watson’s history of the semicolon. Highly recommended. I’ve watched — twice, so far — Gary Hustwit’s documentary on the typeface Helvetica. My daughter gave me Henry Petroski’s history of the pencil. I’m looking forward to reading it. I have a shelf-full of style manuals. I use who and whom.

And I believe that free punctuation, like free jazz, is not for everyone. Not for me, to be sure. Get off my lawn.

I’ve tried to accept with equanimity the rise of the exclamation point, formerly a bit player on the grammatical stage. Overuse of it was once the mark of amateur writing, but it has rocketed in popularity, now an essential signifier of mood and cordiality in online exchanges. To reply “sure.” instead of “sure!!!” to a friendly request sends a frosty — if not outright hostile — signal.

I think we all can sympathize with the titular character in Holly Smale’s “Cassandra in Reverse”:

Texting is so hard to get right—too long, too short, too keen, too cold, very inappropriate, Cassandra what is wrong with you I’m at a christening—and I can’t read the tone, so, for safety, I’ve learned to copy whatever I’ve just been sent as if it’s a handy template. If they use a smiley and one kiss, I use a smiley and one kiss. Do they like exclamation marks? Me too. Ten minutes between texts? Ten minutes, to the second. Do they use incorrect grammar? I don’t do that—I’m not a monster—but I might abbreviate slightly to match.

I’ve long lived with the hostility some serious writers have toward the aforementioned semicolon, although it baffles me and hurts my heart. That slight pause — more than a comma, but still, just a breath — at the right time creates a rhythmic space like a great singer sitting just behind the beat, giving the song a different flavor.

But now I’m hearing that the em dash, that workhorse of the emphasized phrase, is seen as evidence of A.I. writing.

Stop. Just stop. (Or, I suppose: Stop — just stop.)

Happily, the redoubtable Benjamin Dreyer took up this curious bit of blasphemy in a piece he posted in June. To which I say, no better person for the job. (To quote him: “America’s Copy Editor® • author of the New York Times/IndieBound bestseller Dreyer’s English and Stet! (the game!) • former copy chief and managing editor of Random House (ret.).”)

Dreyer had little trouble finding students reluctant to use the em dash, fearing accusations of, as he dashingly put it, “bottery.” But his investigation turned up no evidence supporting the idea of the dash as an A.I. tell.

And when he reviewed the use of em dashes in an A.I-generated passage, he found that the punctuation did not give away its algorithmic origins.

Dreyer concludes:

It irks me no end, I must note, that well-intentioned and presumably honest students (and others) should have to spend an iota of an atom of a second second-guessing their writing for fear that someone who might as well be brandishing a divining rod or a planchette is going to indict them for cheating over the wielding of a piece of punctuation so utterly commonplace that, as I joked with dead seriousness a few years ago, “you don’t need much advice from me on how to use em dashes, because you all seem to use an awful lot of them.”

Not only utterly commonplace, I note, but utterly useful. Dashes—which isolate, highlight, emphasize—serve a very different purpose than do parentheses (which confide, like a character in a Restoration comedy stepping down to the footlights, curling a hand around their mouth, and giving the audience the good goss about what no one else on stage can, per convention, hear) or commas, which, among their many purposes, are useful for bracketing supplemental and/or useful, but not necessarily necessary, information.

Writers shouldn’t, I think, have to concern themselves that their use of em dashes raises questions about their integrity or humanity; they should simply use dashes because they’re useful, like apostrophes, semicolons, and the letter t.

Case closed.

But while Dreyer defends the dignity and integrity of the em dash, we live in wild and lawless times. How long before the em dash, so accused, can reclaim its reputation?

The answer to that rests with all of us — to write with precision and verve. To use the tools available with skill and imagination. To reject cheap innuendo. To embrace kindness.

To pick a favorite typeface. I have thoughts!

And to give a little more consideration, I would ask, to a deftly placed semicolon; it could use a little love.

Thanks!!!

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