Kurt Vonnegut

[koosie]

I am greatly saddened this morning to hear of the death of the novellist Kurt Vonnegut jr. Although best known as a biting satirist, his books were always warm-hearted and funny and always made you look at whatever subject he was adressing in a strange and illuminating way.
This also means no more punchline-driven science fiction shorts by his alter-ego Kilgore Trout. This alone would be a great loss to the world, I can only hope the many hundreds of Trout shorts are collected together at last in one volume as it would be a wishing-well of fresh ideas for the writers and philosophers of the future.

[Partymember]

awwwww DAMMIT! Slaughterhouse Five rocks...jeez. This sucks!

Safe Journeys into the Other Side, Kurt.

[AerostarMonk]

No way!!! I thought he was immortal! I love Cat's Cradle!

Happy trails, Kurt.

[jekylljuice]

I've never actually read any of his books (I know - the shame ) but I have nothing but respect for anyone with gall enough to comment that the key to being a great writer is to "never use semi-colons".

[Jabberwocky]

... ...




Funkmonkies.

[Ditchy McAbandonpants]

Originally Posted by jekylljuice

I've never actually read any of his books (I know - the shame ) but I have nothing but respect for anyone with gall enough to comment that the key to being a great writer is to "never use semi-colons".

I have to tell you, reading that statement has sent me in to something approaching an existential crisis, because I'm a total semicolon evangelist; if I write three sentences, you can bet two of them will use one. I love the damn things; I think they really help the flow and structuring of a paragraph, but hearing this from one of the most repsected authors of the 20th Century has opened up a large internal conflict for me. I'm going to have to take another look at the essay I'm writing...

Rest In Peace, Kurt Vonnegut: I never got to reading any of your books, but you've just managed to really screw me up there anyway.

[jekylljuice]

Originally Posted by Ditchy McAbandonpants

I have to tell you, reading that statement has sent me in to something apporaching an existential crisis, because I'm a total semicolon evangelist; if I write three sentences, you can bet two of them will use one. I love the damn things; I think they really help the flow and structuring of a paragraph, but hearing this from one of the most repsected authors of the 20th Century has opened up a large internal conflict for me. I'm going to have to take another look at the essay I'm writing...

I'm actually just the same. I use semi-colons all the time in my writing (dashes too). But they have caused me nothing but confusion in the long run. Over the years, I've had various teachers and tutors go through my essays and lecture me on how I'm applying them wrong, where I should be using semi-colons and where just plain old regular colons. Their instructions have always struck me as oddly conflicting, and I can't say I've ever been able to figure out the rules (I'm an English student, and I'm still as perplexed on the matter as the next person). They're far too deeply ingrained in my writing patterns to be going anywhere now, and they make your work look somewhat fancy, but I can't help but wonder if they're more trouble than they're really worth. That's why Kurt's words on the matter strike such a chord with me.

[Ditchy McAbandonpants]

To be honest, as much as I use colons and semicolons, I'm not absolutely crystal clear on the rules myself; I was taught them once, and ever since I just use them where they "feel" correct to me. I haven't been called out on it, so I guess I must be doing it right most of the time. My understanding is basically that you use colons when you want to join two clauses that wouldn't make sense separately, like when you introduce a list, or the second clause explains or qualifies the first; the semicolon you use if the two clauses are gramatically independent but you want to suggest a connection between them anyway. Dashes...uh, they're a grey area. ??? I try to avoid using them, but I often do, and I think I do it in places where I really ought to be using a colon, semicolon or a bracket.

Or something.

Actually, just ignore me, because I might not even be making the slightest bit of sense. Here's a site I was just looking at to try and explain this; it didn't clear things up totally, but there's a little punctuation usage quiz at the bottom which might help. I empathise with you, though; whatever Kurt said, I'm too set in my semicolon-using ways to stop now...

EDIT - Oh my lord, I just realised how insanely boring this must sound. Did I really spend all that time talking about fricking punctuation marks? I need to get out more...back to Kurt Vonnegut, people, sorry.

[jekylljuice]

Originally Posted by Ditchy McAbandonpants

Actually, just ignore me, because I might not even be making the slightest bit of sense. Here's a site I was just looking at to try and explain this; it didn't clear things up totally, but there's a little punctuation usage quiz at the bottom which might help. I empathise with you, though; whatever Kurt said, I'm too set in my semicolon-using ways to stop now...

Well, I took the quiz and got 24 out of 27, so aside from a few hiccups I think I generally have the right idea. But dang, people make them sound so confusing. That link was a tad more straightforward, so thanks for providing it.

As punctuation marks go, dashes are something very near and dear to my heart - I've never had any real confusion over where to apply them, and they've always felt somewhat natural, making the writing flow in the manner of speech - though they usually get frowned upon whenever I include them in my essays, gramatically correct or not. Most tutors I've met view them as waste of space - instead of using them to conjoin a sentence, I should simply stop and start a new one. But ack ----------- it just can't be done.

And yeah, my apologies to all Kurt Vonnegut fans who are getting frustrated with us flooding his memorial thread with our punctuation woes. But fair's fair, when he made that rather bold statement about semi-colons, he must have been aware that such debates would inevitably be part of his post-humous legacy.