Reasoning with Vampires is a blog devised by a Twilight despiser. Having had a conversation with my boss about why I am against Twilight, I thought I would check it out to see what I could share with her about how Twilight teaches girls that there is nothing more important than having a boyfriend.
This post below is not one I would share with my boss, but it is one that connected with my interests.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that Stephanie Meyer can identify an independent clause and knows that a semi-colon can go between two of them. Most people don't know that. I do take issue with her over-use of this punctuation mark in connecting unrelated sentences.
I once heard the director of the Writing Center at Kansas State tell a student that a semi-colon is a last resort punctuation mark. If you're inclined to use it, find the relationship between the sentences involved and try to use a conjunction to show that relationship--a subordinating or coordinating conjunction will do the trick.
I'm not quite that strict with my semi-colon policies because I like the semi-colon; I don't want to see it fall out of use. Sometimes the rhythm requires the semi-colon rather than some sort of conjunction. But I only use semi-colons in places where I would be tempted to use a run-on, meaning only in places where the two independent clauses form a single effect to me. That's the only time a semi-colon should be used to fuse two independent clauses together into a single sentence.
Semi-colons create sentence marriage, which should only be entered upon in cases of serious mutual idea committment.
Shame on you, Stephanie Meyer, for encouraging unhealthy relationships between girls and vampires and between clauses. It's just not right.
