A difficult part of writing for me is when a single sentence–especially dialogue–contains two tones. It sounds best as a single sentence, but ending with a period, or alternative punctuation, looks wrong. As well as this, using two sentences also looks wrong.

I can’t think of a great example right now, but I know I’ve wanted punctuation that doesn’t exist before. I’ve had moments where it would have been so useful to have a “;!” and a “;?” mark.

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
    8·
    4 months ago

    Is a new mark necessary? Just taking out the semicolon does exactly what you want.

    Hell, the semicolon was pretty much invented because someone thought “What if I want a compound sentence, but can’t decide on a conjunction to put between them?”

    How often does anybody use THOSE? (In English, C++ doesn’t count)

    • HEXN3TOP
      2·
      4 months ago

      The sentence doesn’t have emphasis unless I use italics, which isn’t always convenient, or sometimes even possible (writing, software with no formatting).

      Also, I use semicolons–and double hyphens, for that matter–quite frequently. I love using them.