Jake Young is a 
This is funny.
Andrew Sullivan has a discussion going on whether the use of semicolons is (ahem) gay. It references an article in the Boston Globe documenting a variety of semicolon-haters.
But here is the best comment from Bryan Appleyard:
Lately, with considerable effort, I have begin to use them with some frequency; they seem to come almost naturally at last. Yet I still fear Kurt Vonnegut's description of them as 'transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing' as well as the charge that real men neither eat quiche nor use semi-colons. In the end, however, the semi-colon is like death; we must all face it alone. (Emphasis mine.)
My experience with semicolons started in high school. I had this teacher who said that the length of an English sentence should be about 20 words for proper writing. Since my classmates and I had trouble writing flowing, Johnsonian prose, we all started squishing (sometimes unrelated) sentences together to make them longer. The result was barely coherent. If I remember correctly, my teacher specifically prohibited sentences like the following:
"Gatsby represents the optimism for self-improvement in the American character; in the end, he kills someone with a car."
I don't think the experience gave me a bad impression of semicolons, though. I still use them. (My friends joke that sometimes I will even use them while text messaging.) But I like to keep them for sentences where the thought is closing but not quite closed. I never thought of them as effeminate, just unwieldy in most situations.
Using semicolons is like deciding whether to take a sword and a gun to duel. Sure, a sword will do the job, but you weren't planning on getting that close. And you will look like a jackass flourishing your tool while a perfectly adequate substitute sits in your belt.
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Another silly tempest in a teapot. Sulivan even uses the dreaded mark in his post.
Strunk and White endorse it. Anyone who doesn't know Strunk & White shouldn't be writing in public.
The Globe article makes no mention of gayetude. The closest approach is by curmudgeon Vonnegut, whose description is against the mark itself, not those who use it.
The article mentions Ben McIntyre's abhorrence of semicolons; here's old Ben himself in a Times article:
How would Churchill have answered the Islamist threat?
"He knew that it was the historian�s privilege to shape the future, as well as to record the past, and once remarked that he would ensure his place in history, because he intended to write it; historians, politicians and pundits are still writing it, and never more urgently than at times of national insecurity."
A semicolon is sort of like a powerful comma. It joins two phrases, each of which could be a stand-alone sentence, but where the second is closely tied to the first.
Posted by: ZZMi | August 20, 2008 6:39 PM
The most homophobic mention in the Globe article was James Kilpatrick calling it "girly," and "sissified." I think some people worry way too much about maintaining their macho cred. No doubt Freud would have something pithy and well-punctuated to say about this.
Posted by: John McKay | August 20, 2008 7:18 PM
I use semicolons all the time and I'm pretty sure I like women. Semicolons have a legitimate function that neither a period nor a comma can adequately fill. Besides, if we're going to have a punctuation crusade it really should be against the epidemic of bad apostrophe use.
Posted by: Matt Springer | August 20, 2008 7:54 PM
I am objectively pro-semicolon.
Posted by: PhysioProf | August 20, 2008 9:26 PM
Real men don't care what the book says; they form their own opinion.
Posted by: Thinker | August 21, 2008 3:55 AM
Seriously, Whisky Tango Foxtrot? It's a freaking punctuation mark. It has no sexuality of its own, and no implications for the sexuality of its user.
What next - em-dashes are liberal?
Sign me up!
Posted by: Dunc | August 21, 2008 4:57 AM
"It's a freaking punctuation mark. It has no sexuality of its own"
Well, periods are definitely female. Ever hear of a man having a period?!
What really gets me is those square brackets. Man, why can't they loosen up? Parethetically, I think they're the militant wing of the interjection party.
Posted by: Ian | August 21, 2008 8:01 AM
sir,
i object to the heteronormative slant of this discourse!
sincerely,
c.v. snicker
Posted by: chet snicker | August 27, 2008 2:04 AM