Dick,
    I think the semicolon isn't used as often as it should be, maybe as a
result of our turn away from direct teaching of sentence structure.
It's hard to explain it in terms of sound or pause.
   I think you put your finger on our disagreement. To me, in fact, this
is not just a comma splice, but a run-on sentence, which I would define
as two or more independent clauses not linked in standard ways, those
being largely conjunction, colon, or semicolon. I find that my students
come to college with strange ideas about run-ons. One student this
summer told me it was "a sentence with more than five 'ands'."
   I think "comma splice" is a pejorative term, as are run-on and sentence
fragment, but it's more accurate, I think, to define them in terms of
form and then consider separately if and how they can be used
effectively.
    I think the Times example could be improved in a number of ways:
    "Wikileaks is not just a source, but a publisher." "Wikileaks is a
publisher, not just a source." It would seem to me that the two clause
version would draw in a slower reading--two separate, but connected
statements--perfect for a semicolon. If I wanted a quicker reading, I
would opt for single clause. Obviously, I am being outvoted by
prevailing use.

Craig>


Craig, it's probably not confusion or even disagreement so much as
> different
> definitions of "comma splice." I was considering that term (like "run-on
> sentence") a pejorative denoting an improper use of the comma between
> clauses. You are using a definition which includes all clauses joined by
> commas, both proper and improper. It may well be that your broader
> definition is the more widespread.
>
> Whatever we call them, I don't think there is much doubt that literate
> writers often join sentences of the "it's not X, it's Y" variety with a
> comma. I just Googled the words "it's not the heat it's the humidity"
> without supplying punctuation, and well over 75% of the hundreds of return
> examples had a comma after "heat." A much smaller percentage had a period,
> very few had a dash, and almost none had a semicolon. I stopped looking
> after about six pages.
>
> Dick
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Dick,
>>    I think you may be confusing whether it's a comma splice with whether
>> it's acceptable (or should be). I have always understood a comma
>> splice as a comma (and no conjunction) between independent clauses.
>> That doesn't mean it's always wrong to do so. (The same is true of
>> sentence fragment. It can be rhetorically justified, but doesn't stop
>> being a fragment when it is.)
>>     The intonation, for me, would be fall rise, which does anticipate
>> continuation. But to me, that's pretty much what a semicolon
>> connotes. The clauses are syntactically independent, but meaningfully
>> thought of (rhetorically presented)as a single statement with two
>> equal parts. I would argue for the semicolon as the best choice.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>  Bud,
>> >
>> > The direct link is
>> http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/after-deadline/.
>> >
>> > I have long admired the *Times*'s careful attention to consistency in
>> > style
>> > and their efforts at self-correction. I agree with most of their
>> choices,
>> > and most *are *choices, since all but a few deal with usage rather
>> than
>> > grammar. For example, "*reason why* more people are opting for the
>> bus"
>> is
>> > perfectly grammatical, but the "why" adds nothing to meaning and
>> > eliminating
>> > it makes the sentence crisper.
>> >
>> > One I question is the judgment that "*WikiLeaks was more than just a
>> > source,
>> > it was a publisher"* has a comma splice and should have a semicolon,
>> dash,
>> > or period. To me, a comma is fine and standard between two clauses of
>> the
>> > "it's not this, it's that" variety which are read aloud with no
>> > sentence-final pause at the comma position.
>> >
>> > Thanks, Bud, for alerting me to this weekly column.
>> >
>> > Dick
>>
>
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