Hot off the press, here is a learning support on using semicolons. It is very thorough, and is excerpted from one of the best (in my opinion) punctuation manuals out there.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Elision: In speech and writing, the omission or slurring (eliding) of one or more vowels, consonants, or syllables, as in ol’ man old man, gonna going to, wannabe want to be, and the usual pronunciation of parliament (‘parlement’). Although in speech there is no direct indication of elision, in writing it is often marked by an apostrophe: didn’t did not, I’d’ve I would have. Elision is common in everyday speech and may specially marked in verse to ensure that readers keep the meter, and in th’empire. Foreign students often have trouble coming to terms with elisions created by the stress-time rhythm of English, which may make word sequences sound nonsensical, It is no good at all sounding like Snow good a tall.
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
“Axiom (noun): A generally or universally accepted truth or incontestable principle; self-evident or fundamental proposition; verity. Adj. axiomatic; adv. axiomatically.
‘He recalled a slang axiom that never had any meaning in college days: ‘Don’t buck the system; you’re likely to gum the works.’ John O’Hara, Appointment in Samarra”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“Meiosis: [Stress: ‘my-OH-sis’] In rhetoric, a kind of understatement that dismisses or belittles, especially by using terms that make something seem less significant than it really is or ought to be: for example, calling a serious wound a scratch, or a journalist a hack or a scribbler.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
“Criticism, Political: Favorite reply of those in authority to those who question their actions: ‘It’s easy to criticize.’ Alternate reply: ‘Anyone can criticize.” This is often followed by: “And what would you have done in my place?’ by which is meant ‘if you’re so smart.’ A move complex variation is: You have to be tough to do the right thing. Leadership isn’t a popularity contest.’
These denigrations of criticism have become such a generalized chorus that we often feel embarrassed, even guilty, when the need arises to say something negative.
Yet those we criticize chose freely to seek positions of authority. We are the raison d’etre of the entire system. We are also the employers of those in public office and in the public service. Why should we accept from them a discourse which suggests contempt for us and for the democratic system?
What’s more, it is note easy to criticize. It is extremely difficult. We have to question experts and insiders in areas in which we are not expert. This involves constantly out-guessing them, because they keep back much of the information we need in order to decide what we think. The problem is that any facile idiot with a bit of power can avoid giving an honest reply by putting on an important air and protesting that criticism is easy.”
Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.
“Casuistry (noun): The determining of right and wrong in matters of conduct or conscience, or the applying of principles of ethics, particularly in instances that are complex or ambiguous; false, deceptive reasoning about law or morals; sophisticated persuasion. Adjective: casuistic, casuistical; adverb: casuistically.
‘After you strip this prose of its casuistic caveats, distinctions and reservations, there still remains the “needs to be taken seriously as studiously”; there remains the “structural” identity that, at least for this high culture illiterate, means flagrant gilding by association.’ John Simon, Reverse Angle”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“Compendium (noun): A resume of written work, text, or area of inquiry; brief but comprehensive summary; collection or inventory. Adjective: compendious; Adverb: compendiously; Noun: compendiousness.
‘We—whoever “we” are—might define the compulsion as a pleasurable urge to express through verbal imagery a compendium of certain inexplicably correlated vagaries observed by him in mental patients, on an off, since his first hear at Chose.’ Vladimir Nabokov, Ada”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“Neologism: A new word or sense of a word and the coining or use of new words and sense. Most neologisms in English belong in the following categories; (1) Compounding: couch potato, someone constantly slumped on a couch watching television: video-conferencing, a number of people taking part in a conference or conferences by means of video equipment rather than all meeting on one place. (2) Derivation: yuppie, formed from yup, the initial letters of the phrase ‘young urban professional’ by adding the suffix –ie; yuppiedom, the condition of being a yuppie, formed from yuppie by adding the further suffix -dom. (3) Shifting meaning: spin, a journalist’s term for a special bias or slant given to a piece of writing. (4) Extension in grammatical function: the nouns guest and host used as verbs. (5) Abbreviation: in Stock Exchange usage, arb from arbitrager or arbitrageur, one who sells securities or commodities simultaneously in different markets to benefit from unequal prices; the computer acronym GIGO, meaning garbage in, garbage out. (6) Back-Formation: disinform formed from disinformation (and not the reverse). (7) Blending: harmolodic mixing harmony and melodic. (8) Borrowing: loanwords such as glasnost from Russian; Calques or Loan Translations such found object from the French objet trouve. (9) Very rarely, Root-Creation, or Coinage from sounds with no previous known meaning whatever: googol, Kodak (both apparently formed ex nihilo.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
“multiple intelligences (MI): The theory that many people have many ways of demonstrating their capabilities and that rather than being a single entity, intelligence is made up of distinct learning proficiencies that can work individually or together. In 1983, psychologist Howard Gardner introduced the concept of multiple intelligences in his book Frames of Mind to show that the usual school-based emphasis on rationality and logic is not the only way to be ‘intelligent.’ There is now a huge following for MI; many schools have adopted some version of it, and related training and professional development programs have proliferated. Gardner originally identified seven intelligences, only the first two of which are typically valued by schools: verbal-linguistic (the ability to use language to convey information well and to analyze language use); logical-mathematical (the capacity to analyze problems logically, grasp abstractions, recognize codes and patterns, and investigate issues scientifically) visual-spatial (the ability to recognize and manipulate the relationships of object, concepts, or images in different dimensions); musical-rhythmic (sensitivity to pitch and rhythm of sounds, as well as skill in performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns); bodily-kinesthetic (the ability to use body movement to connect with information, solve problems, and convey ideas); interpersonal (the awareness of others’ intentions, motivations, and feelings, and the ability to interact with others with understanding); and intrapersonal (the capacity to understand oneself and to recognize one’s own feelings, fears, and motivations). Gardner subsequently added and eighth intelligence: naturalist intelligence, or the ability to recognize, categorize, and draw on certain features of the natural environment. Critics say that these intelligences are actually aptitudes or abilities, or variations of rational thinking, rather than what most people consider general intelligence, and that no one can function successfully in the modern world without the linguistic and logical skills valued by schools.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar: Contrasting terms in linguistics. A descriptive grammar is an account of a language that seeks to describe how it is used objectively, accurately, systematically, and comprehensively. A prescriptive grammar is an account of a language that sets out rules (prescriptions) for how it should be used and for what it should not be used (proscriptions), based on norms derived from a particular model of grammar. For English, such a grammar may prescribe I as in It is I and proscribe me as in It’s me. It may proscribe like used as a conjunction, as in He behaved like he was in charge, prescribing instead He behaved as if he were in charge. Prescriptive grammars have been criticized for not taking account of language change and stylistic variation, and for imposing the norms of some groups on all users of a language. They have been discussed by linguists as exemplifying specific attitudes to language and usage. Traditional grammar books have often, however, combined description and prescription. Since the late 1950s, it has become common in linguistics to contrast descriptive grammars with generative grammars. The former involve a description of linguistic structures, usually based on utterance elicited from native-speaking informants. The latter, introduced by Chomsky, concentrate on providing an explicit account of an ideal native speaker’s knowledge of language (competence) rather than a description of samples (performance). Chomsky argued that generative grammars are more valuable, since they capture the creative aspect of human linguistic ability. Linguists generally regard both approaches as complementary.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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