the past, present, and future of a misunderstood mark
". . . charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark [the semicolon], which for years was the trendiest one in the world of letters. But in the nineteenth century, as grammar books became all the rage, the rules of how we use language became both stricter and more confusing, with the semicolon a prime victim. Taking [readers] on a . . . journey through a range of examples--from Milton's manuscripts to Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Letters from Birmingham Jail' to Raymond Chandler's 'The Big Sleep'--Watson reveals how traditional grammar rules make [people] less successful at communicating with each other than [they'd] think . . ."--Amazon.
