Save our semi-colon, say French campaigners

A humble punctuation mark is the latest cause in the fight to preserve the elegance of French in the face of lazy habits from the English-speaking world.

Writers and linguistic patriots have thrown their weight behind a push to save le point-virgule -- the semi-colon. It is threatened with extinction because the media, authors and the people at large no longer understand its use. They prefer chopping their prose into short sentences with full stops (periods).

Fans of the semi-colon were pleased today by a topical April Fool's joke on the influential Rue89 news site. This reported that President Sarkozy had created a state commission to save the semi-colon. The device would have to be used at least three times in all official correspondence, it said.

The article, which included a bogus mission letter on Elysée Palace stationary, initially took in readers because it was only a slight exaggeration of reality. Sarkozy has a mania for intervention and the media have lately been reporting the threat to the semi-colon.

The point-virgule, which allows a breathing space in a train of thought, is said to be falling victim to the brevity preferred by English speakers. "To make long sentences, you need a nice fountain pen and a good piece of paper," Claude Duneton, a writer and French teacher, told us today. "Short sentences come from the more direct, 'Anglo-Saxon' style. That reflects the modern age and the need for speed."

The present campaign was started by Sylvie Prioul and Olivier Houdart, editors on Monde.fr and the Nouvel Observateur. They have poured their frustrations into La Ponctuation ou l'art d'accomoder les textes. Their views are close to those of Britain's Lynn Truss and her 2003 best-seller "Eats, shoots and leaves."

Prioul said last week on France-Inter radio:  "The semi-colon is disappearing like the bear. People do not like it; writers are frightened of it; newspapers no longer use it. It's a bit sad." The plight of the semi-colon, which was cherished by Victor Hugo, Marcel Proust and other classic novelists, is part of the wider destruction of Gallic punctuation by the "horrible" practices of English type-setting, as used by computers, Prioul says. "All punctuation marks that should be separated from letters now have to be stuck to them in the 'Anglo-Saxon' way," she complained.

Few journalists and modern authors use semi-colons. An exception, Prioul says, is Michel Houellebecq, the author of bleak best-sellers such as Particules Elémentaires (Atomized), she noted. A Houellebecq example is: "He was unable to remember his last erection; he was waiting for the storm."

The campaign has amplified a long-standing complaint from purists who are devoted to the clarity that a semi-colon brings to multi-clause sentences.  Their case was helped today by Alain Rey, the grand old arbiter of modern usage who edits the Robert Dictionary (I have often quoted him here). The semi-colon "is indispensable for healthy reasoning," he said in a video for Rue89's spoof story [open on site here]. "Punctuation is not leftwing or rightwing; it transcends the political divide...For me it is a symbol of a Republic that reasons correctly."  He also suggested, tongue in cheek, that Sarko also create a commission to save the subjunctive...

Rey was playing along with the Sarkozy gag, but he was voicing deeply-held  beliefs.

Here's a more decent example of French semi-colon use: Je suis content que tu sois venue; que ton sourire illumine ce moment (I am happy that you came; that your smile is lighting up this moment).

[Below: Alain Rey, militant lexicographer]

Comments

[Robert Marchenoir]

Of course, a witty response with dutifully-placed semi-colons is in order here. I'm afraid someone else will have to contribute.

[Maggie G]

What about the dash?

"Punctuation is not leftwing or rightwing; it transcends the political divide"

"Punctuation is not leftwing or rightwing – it transcends the political divide."

Is this correct, incorrect, the same, or different? Is it anglophone only, and not French? Or is it not correct in English either?

"Je suis content que tu sois venue – que ton sourire illumine ce moment."

[Maggie, the 'you' in question here is feminine. I inserted the semi-colons in Rey's remarks, which were on a video. The dash is deemed more Anglo-Saxon. CB]

[Mary Chin]

I use the semi-colon in my English prose but rarely in French. French news articles would use the comma splice in place of the semi-colon. As for the '"horrible" practices of English type-setting, as used by computers', all you have to do is reset the language to French, and voila !, spaces are added automatically before all punctuation marks with two elements (Quebec French excepted).

[Lily]

I am a foreigner and a fan of the semi-colon; I promise that I will do my best and help France to preserve their punctuation mark. :)

Mr Rey's dress is the perfect mission statement, wearing the 'point' on his tie and the 'virgule' on his shirt. ;)

The semi-colon is also indispensable for blinking on the blog ;) ;) !)

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

I saw this on The Times Online and thought you might be interested$
To$ God
Cc$ Matthew$ Mark$ Luke$ John$
WHO HAS NICKED MY SEMI C O L O N
J.C.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

MUGABE farewell speech
"I hate all colons especially British colons and it was the semi-colons who stuffed the voting boxes and caused my downfall. But when the tree falls, a lot of little colons and semi-colons will come down with it."

[Daniel Strohl]

Maggie G,

I use both the semi-colon and the dash. But it seems that only one semi-colon should be used in a single phrase, even if it is long. But two dashes may be used.

"Je suis content que tu sois venue – que ton sourire illumine ce moment - ton sourire est toujours radieux."

Or :

"Je suis content que tu sois venue – que ton sourire illumine ce moment; ton sourire est toujours radieux."

I prefer the second version.

[dot king]

I do use semi-colons regularly, when necessary.
I shall try to come back to this later as there were some points I'd like to pick up, but sorry CHARLES, en attendant, I can't resist: "stationary" means "not moving"; I think you mean "stationery".
(Elysée Palace stationary)

(I mean it kindly, Possum.)

[Joan Arles]

Only in France could people believe that the president was creating a mission to save a punctuation mark. That's why we love France....
I love Alain Rey. Pity he is not doing his France-Inter word-of-the-day slot any more.

[John Drew]

I am a French teacher in Ontario and I say three cheers to the war of the semi-colon. These things matter. If France won't fight for them, who will ? Can you imagine George W defending the question mark? Come to think of it, I can.

[Pierre Bernardi]

The semi-colon knows its station in life ; it's stationary.

[John Styx]

Nice choice for an April fool! Actually, the French point-virgule has been the object of passionate debate. Michel Tournier is famously quoted as having said: "I never found it any use". When in khâgne, I was not taught not to use it ("don't try to write like Proust"); my French teacher thought it was a bastard compromise between the dash (which was highly commended) and the period.

Now there's a sentence that truly wouldn't be the same without it. As it's beautiful 18th-century French, I can't resist quoting it. "J'aimais éperdument la comtesse de ... ; j'avais vingt ans, et j'étais ingénu ; elle me trompa, je me fâchai, elle me quitta. J'étais ingénu, je la regrettai ; j'avais vingt ans, elle me pardonna : et comme j'avais vingt ans, que j'étais ingénu, toujours trompé, mais plus quitté, je me croyais l'amant le mieux aimé, partant le plus heureux des hommes." That was the beginning of _Point de lendemain_ by Vivant Denon.

(Incidentally, the correct typographic usage is complicated and no one ever use it any more. The French semi-colon is normally preceded by a French thin space and followed by a non-breaking thick space.)

The dash is more dashing. Unfortunately I cave in to my Word grammar corrector and insert semi-colons when it demands it, because I hate that squiggly green line. But Word hasn't evolved with the times; the semi-colon is passé.

However William Safire says:

"In the 70s the dash was hot--it expressed the herky-jerkiness of the age of insertion and afterthought. in the 80s and 90s, the ellipsis became the rage, because its three dots in mid-sentence showed the spoken word dominating the written word...dribbling off dreamily... In the nameless third millennium, we're moving toward connectedness; buy semicolon stock.

I must check my Strunk.

[Christine]

The dash and the semi colon do not have the same meaning. While the semi colon is used to pause the sentence, the dash is used in order to add a reserve (reservation?) or an information to the main sentence (a bit like a "parenthèse").
Example
Je suis content que tu sois venue - même si c'est pour repartir.

Charles, you forgot to add a space between the word and the semi colon in Alain Rey's quote...

[John Styx]

Oh dear. The thin space is non-breaking, of course, not the thick one...

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

In Ulysses, 1922, Joyce "threw away the pepper-pot", dispensing with quotation marks etc but used the dash. Tom Driberg, Labour MP, pen name William Hickey, used three dots between each sentence in his coverage of the 1937 Coronation in the Daily Express***
American gossip columnists, Cholly Knickerbocker, Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, used the three dots style between "items".
"The Cradle Will Fall" by Stephen Seley, 1943, used the three dots and the dashes. A reviewer said he thought it was written in Morse Code.
"Friends of Eddie Coyle", written by a District Attorney was all dialogue without the use of punctuation.
*** James Joyce, hungry in Paris, wrote criticism for the Daily Express for ten shillings per review. Later, the rich American who was supporting him while he wrote his classic tome, saw him and his family eating in Fouquet's, and she stopped his allowance, on the grounds that the place for a genius is the garret.

[dot king]

So, the English language is being accused of insidiously slipping words and expressions into the French language, polluting it, AND stamping out their semi-colon? This is too much!

Of course, use of punctuation depends largely on what you want to convey; whether you are leaving a note for the milkman, or writing an avant-propos to "Les Misérables" (recently analysed with pupils in 4ème - it's one long sentence; the main clause is well-nigh impossible to locate).
"No milk until further notice. Thank you."
"We shall be absent until the end of the week; please leave 2 pints on Friday. Thank you."
(See what I mean? Spot the avant-propos.)

It has nothing to do with a "need for speed". It has to do with the way a given writer chooses to express him/herself.
Do these point-virgule campaigners want it used by the general public or just to be preserved in literature? I suspect the latter. (If it's the former, then on peut toujours rêver!)
Professional writers write to communicate - as we all do, but for them it should be an art as well as an occupation. Therefore, they should consider form and style when writing.
Sometimes a series of short sentences will produce the effect they're trying to achieve (fast movements, confusion, breathlessness, panic, events out of control etc); sometimes a well-constructed, clearly expressed single sentence, with elements of style, (lists, personification, metaphor, simile etc) will produce a different effect (a detailed description, a relaxed, langorous feeling, lethargy, etc).
The opening of Dickens' "Hard Times" for example, is an oval, or a dome. He wrote it like that on purpose. Style.
Longer sentences with, therefore, more punctuation, are a feature of classical literature; I would say because the pace of life being described was so much slower. We could, if we wanted, make a case for the insertion of more exclamation marks in Jane Austen novels, but they'd probably be out of place in stories where quite often the most dramatic occurence is that the heroine falls over and bumps her head, or swoons.
Writing can be a simple means of transmitting a message, or it can be all at once an art form and a dicipline (writing sonnets, haiku, alexandrins for eg). Punctuation is what a writer uses, as much as words, to convey meaning and help the reader make sense of the product.
Everyone writes to be read, otherwise there'd be no point in writing anything. If you want anyone to understand what you write, then you can't do without APPROPRIATE punctuation.
I don't know for certain what the rule is about the point-virgule, but I use it when I bring in a new aspect of the idea in the same sentence. A comma for a continuation, a semi-colon for a small change of direction, sans plus.
I wonder who counted the semi-colons in Houellebecq? Probably some unsuspecting stagiaire . . .

[Dominique]

On more bad modern habit in the french writing nowadays is the lack of vocabulary leading to an extended use of quotes "---" replacing the "soi-disant" (so-called in english) and all other precise ways of describing things.

Journalists nowadays use these quotes when they don't know how to express complex things. These quotes are also used in the oral language with people using the words "entre guillemets" along with two fingers of each hand miming the quotes around a smiling face : \\ (¨) //

This allows them to let us know that he knows that things are complex and that there is plenty of complex ideas behind the word without having to explain them. That is the implicit language sinking into terrible intellectual poverty.

For exemple, instead of saying :

"le président mène une politique fisale combattue par l'opposition qui voit en cette dernière une politique de classe"

journalist now write :

"le président mène une "politique ficale" combattue par l'opposition"

why explaining? who cares? let's make it as short as possible! Jean François Kahn did wrote that journalists now need to write short sentences if the want readers. Journalism is about the number of people who read your articles? then the best way to make journalism is to make commercials : one or two words on the walls of the metro : maximum number of viewers, minimum of effort!

[Azloon/Rob Furlong]

i have always had a vision of colonoscopies and semicolonoscopies for less impaired colons whenever i see either symbol so i am not apt to use them rather to ramble on and on and hope that readers are willing to forgive the resulting lack of organization and concentrate on content this way i don't have think about having a long intrusive tube inserted in the most sensitive of areas and being given a dvd of the proceedure so i can see it again and again on my tv at home or watch it with my grandchildren vivre la france

[John Styx]

Dominique, unless I misunderstand you, Stendhal and Balzac used italics to the very same effect. I grant you it can be pretty annoying, even (especially?) in Balzac's case.

I worked for six months as a copywriter trainee in my misguided youth. I found out admen were much more literate than people think. It's not easy to coin good catchphrases.

[Marguerite.]

Nicolas Sarkozy et Alain Rey, Don Quichotte et Sancho Panca, cheminant sur les pages pour sauver le "point et virgule", comme on disait au bon vieux temps, c'est emouvant.
Ils seraient bien dans une bande dessinee.Ce qui est dommage pour l'equilibre du dessin, c'est qu'ils
sont aussi petits l'un que l'autre.

[richard jones]

The semi-colon is but the tip of the iceberg; other punctuation signs are victims of linguistic warming too!
For me the use of punctuation; I include the colon (now rarer than its smaller brother); the dash, which should only be used, like brackets, to express intervening thought from the narrator; three periods to indicate interruption in speech and the total lack of clarity about punctuating direct and indirect speech, especially if one is uttered within the other: is much more to do with the rhythm of the language than understanding it.
Languages that are word order bound need some punctuation for sense but the real issue is rhythm and the mood a writer can create or disrupt by setting that rhythm.
One would not compose a piece of musick without indications of this kind and we should not leave our language(s) - forget this crap about Anglo-Saxon sticky punctuation, all major European languages are affected - to assert themselves without the help of all available signatures at their disposition.

As a further thought: how do we feel about the different coma and full stop (period) usage in numbers??

[qwerty]

when man determined to destroy himself he picked the was of shall and finding only why smashed it into because (e e cummings)

azloon they do colonoscopies under general anaesthetic in france i saw it on tv the other day

[Azloon/Rob Furlong]

QWERTY

love the e e cummings (makes my pathetic imitation seem....well, pathetic.

yes, a 'a general' is apparently the new order of the day (i hear from golf buddies who are increasingly having to undergo these things).

i guess i was just 'lucky' two years ago in being able to watch the whole thing live, in living color (and wait ing in terror until the doc deigned to tell me about all those strange things i was seeing). i declined the dvd offer. for that sort of thing, i prefer the 'live surgery' cable tv channel.

the procedure was painless for me. i think the anesthesia is meant for situations where immediate surgical repair (for a punctured colon) is necessary.

next time i think i'll ask for the semi-colonoscopy which may not require a 'general.' :)

p.s. i think this is what they mean when they talk about blog 'topic drift.'

[Maggie G]

And by the way, why do the French use a dash instead of quotation marks for speech? It seems sloppy, and rather lazy too.

-- Ton travail, s'exclame Vladi, quel genre de travail oses-tu faire, toi?

-- Alors, lui dit Sidouri, la servante brune, tu dois traverser l'océan de la mort. Le batelier de vieux sage va venir tout à l'heure chercher des provisions. Peut-être pourras-tu obtenir de lui qu'il te conduise jusqu'à l'île.

(first example from a "J'aime Lire" magazine, second example from a 6ième "Français" textbook)

[Pierre Bernardi]

Yes Dominique, it's a shrugging style visible in young people's clothes: loose and baggy, not quite sharp enough to be called ironic, just blurred really. It's been around for a while now, originating in the mid nineties in upper west-coast surf gear, at a time when I considered myself young, but utterly at odds with the fashions of north California. I went skiing one weekend in Whistler and came face to face with the dirge of beige and greys shuffling down the slopes.

Where did it come from? Fear of aids? Is that why women started giving a nod to fundamentalism by wearing skirts over trousers after 2001? And more importantly, how long before it goes away? How long before we develop a style for the 21st century?

[christopher muir]

I confess to using the semi-colon when it's needed; the symbol is, after all, still available on my keyboard. No doubt one day when I upgrade to version XXXX, it will have disappeared. Were the semi-colon used for stock exchange information it would survive. When the semi-colon is wiped from the keyboard, I shall turn to passages of Fowler's Modern English Usage to remind me of better times when it comes to punctuation. There are still some good folk who try hard - I saw a shop-sign today describing a particular sales area as VEGIES'. It might as well have been VEGIES; Nobody really gives a damn.

[Mads]

I am in complete agreement with Dot here. Language is a living, moving 'thing' which has to reflect current usage as well as contribute to the preservation of a culture. That it is being debated on this blog is wonderful.

As Vygotsky pointed out, amongst other uses, language is the tool by which we define our future society, embedding in it all the psychological concepts that we wish to pass on through the medium of education and published prose.

Language is not a neutral activity (obviously)and I too fear that the quest for 'sound-bites' and 'eye-catching' headlines may well erode the beautiful prose by which thoughts are able to be expressed and mulled over; evaluated and shared; assimilated and appreciated; dismissed or rejected.

I love the prose of Jane Austen for the sublime way in which she can use the understatement to express a whole attitude of hypocrisy in a culture. eg: "...gave that reply which she felt a woman in her position ought to give".

I am not sure if Charles' article is meant to be an April Fool or not, as the French do quite rightly, I think, care a great deal about their language and it usage.

So long live discussion about language and long live the semi-colon and debate about its usage!!

[qwerty]

The dash for quotation marks is totally sloppy. That's why I can't read French novels. Plus the use of their special literary past historic tense, of course, which they mix with pathetic attempts at colloquial dialogue that do not sound like real speech. C'est une langue morte, que voulez-vous...

[Romain]

why do the French use a dash instead of quotation marks for speech? Maggie G
In my old school French, dash is not used but in dialogues, kind of separator.

[richard jones]

How long before we develop style for C21? About as long as it takes for the sea to rise and destroy us all!
This is the century of no style or an amalgam of all those we've had already presented in a morass of inappropriateness.
BTW Greece, having been through a massive simplification of the written language (Katharevousa)is now hacking at punctuation as well, although it appears to be mostly to do with the apostrophes that the last changes have engendered, which give Greek more apostrophes per sentence than Welsh. The arguments are familiar the younger generation cannot spell; cannot express itself; cannot write proper and easily understood sentences.

[John Styx]

Maggie and Qwerty, French is far from being the only language using the quotation dash in dialogues — and James Joyce also used it. I rather like it; the English style is a bit frilly to me. One man's caviar is another man's major-general, as the old saw says.

[Maggie G]

"The arguments are familiar the younger generation cannot spell; cannot express itself; cannot write proper and easily understood sentences." (R Jones)

I personally think that should be "cannot write proper and easily-understood sentences".

At first I thought you meant "Cannot write properly, or easily understand sentences".

I do think the hyphen is important for these kind of multiple-word adjectives. But I've said this before, and maybe you are the guy who got rather annoyed the last time. Somebody got fairly annoyed, anyway, and wrote rather a sarcastic reply to a comment I made (about hyphens, I think, but am not certain).

Frank looked it up once, and it appears the hyphen is less used in the UK than in North America. But I think it is definitely more clear with the hyphen.

[Maggie G]

-- Ton travail, s'exclame Vladi, quel genre de travail oses-tu faire, toi?

"Ton travail !" s'exclame Vladi. "Quel genre de travail oses-tu faire, toi?"

-- Alors, lui dit Sidouri, la servante brune, tu dois traverser l'océan de la mort.

"Alors," lui dit Sidouri, la servante brune, "tu dois traverser l'océan de la mort."

Maybe the dash is acceptable, but in the second example you end up reading it twice, because the first time you read,
"Alors," lui dit Sidouri, "la servante brune..."

You don't have this kind of confusion with quotation marks.

[colin grayson]

my use of the semicolon has increased dramatically since the advent of Email ... I think it is a reaction to the virtual abandonment of capital letters in that medium !

a few years ago my wife and I spent a year exploring north america by motorhome ; at one point I saw an interview with a policeman apropos the solving of a kidnap case ; he explained that they were greatly helped by the fact that they knew to look for a highly educated person - he had used a semi-colon in the ransom note !

[John Styx]

Maggie, I parsed it correctly the first time. A fellow worker had no problem either. Perhaps native speakers are less sensitive to garden path sentences?

The sentence is badly written, though. The quotation dash is mainly used in a dialogue without enunciative mark, so there's usually no problem.

— Dites. Quel âge a-t-il à peu près ?
— Dans les trente à trente-cinq.
— Pas plus ? Vous êtes sûr ?
— Non.
(Jules Romains, _Les Hommes de bonne volonté_)

[CharlM]

"The arguments are familiar the younger generation cannot spell; cannot express itself; cannot write proper and easily understood sentences." (Richard Jones)

Unfortunately, schools do not teach English grammar properly anymore.

All of the English grammar that I know comes from learning French and German. As well as teaching a new language, MFL teachers have to teach their students what grammatical terms mean (e.g. passive voice) when this really should be the job of the English department. I go to a state school, so I don't know whether the situation is the same in private schools.

Incidentally, I do know the difference in usage between a colon and a semi-colon, and I am all in favour of a campaign to save them!

[Ros]

I used to know the difference between the use of the colon and semi-colon but now have not the slightest idea? Indeed, they are both on our computer keyboards ...

[Azloon/Rob Furlong]

[solving of a kidnap case ; he explained that they were greatly helped by the fact that they knew to look for a highly educated person - he had used a semi-colon in the ransom note !] Colin Grayson

so I guess i should start using them. that ought to throw police off my trail.

there are other forms of expression that have allowed police to apprehend criminals. the infamous American Unibomber was caught when his brother identified UB's incoherent ranting in a letter the he sent to, and was published by, the New York Times. no punctuation necessary.

[Gilles]

Poisson d'avril !
Il faut s'y habituer ; c'est rituel...

[Azloon/Rob Furlong]

the grammar/punctuation discussions of the past few days, on various strings, brings to mind a Churchill story in which Winston, after discovering that his editors had combed through an entire manuscript to ensure that no sentence ended in a preposition, wrote:

"This is the kind of errant pedantry up with which I will not put."

sort of says it all, don't you think?

or as my least academically talented child once told me as i was reading his report card:

"Dad, don't worry, the 'A' students teach, and the 'B' students work for the 'C' students." and, at least in his case, that's exactly how it's worked out. Churchill might well have said the same thing.

[dot king]

Poisson d'avril !
Il faut s'y habituer ; c'est rituel... (gilles)

Poisson d'avril - peut-être, mais on parlait déjà du point-virgule à la radio pendant le weekend (pardon, la fin de semaine) dernier (pardon, dernière).

En parlant des poissons d'avril, dans notre village, on est en train de refaire la Place. Depuis plusieurs semaines, avec la pluie et d'autres intempéries, nous patogeons dans une mare de boue. Il y a des trous, des bosses, des impasses; et les remparts en déviation sont, par conséquent, comme Les Champs Elysées aux heures
de pointe. La galère, quoi.
Le er avril, un des trous des plus mal-placés avait été couvert d'une bâche, avec un mini-chapiteau au-dessus. Un panneau annonçait une importante découverte archéologique, et "travaux suspendus indéfiniement".

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

I fail to see why a space is being used between the last letter of a word and a colon or a semi-colon, any more than one should leave a space before a question mark, exclamation mark or quotation marks, or comma or full stop for that matter. Is it particularly French? I have never known the English or Americans leave a space.

[john o'doe]

DOT
pataugeons ?

[Romain]

"I fail to see why a space is being used" Peter Kinsley
That is our tradition, even for comas, it is like a pause or a silence in music. I was very crossed when Microsoft auto-correction suppressed spaces in between punctuation in French. Another lost battle.

[John Styx]

Peter, there is no space before commas or periods in French. Typographic usage is specific to each language. French and English don't have the same quotation marks. French tends to use the en-dash (–) to indicate a parenthesis; English favours the em-dash (—). French footnote calls are placed before punctuation signs; English footnote calls are placed after, and so on.

The differences are sometimes surprising. The French style for Ancient Greek typography uses ϐ as an internal beta (as in βίϐλος); the English style uses only β (βίβλος). It's a matter of tradition, really.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

Romain: then why have you not left spaces between the two commas and the letters n and s in line 2 of your reply? The OED describes a semi-colon as "a punctuation-mark (;) now used as the chief stop (the colon being mostly reserved for special uses) of intermediate value between comma and full stop ; et Voila - they do leave a space after a semi-colon: but n o t a l w a y s.
I shall now return to the coma I was in before taking up this matter.

[dot king]

"DOT
pataugeons ?"

John, quite possibly - I realised this after I'd sent - I also realise that I hear the word used regularly, but don't think I've seen it written. When it occured to me, sometime during this afternoon, it seemed obvious - thanks, you've saved my having to look it up! :)

[dot king]

Can it not be agreed that different languages are written and punctuated differently? There seems to be degeneration into an argument as to whether spaces before commas, or absence of spaces before commas are better the ones than the others.

If you use both French and English, you just get used to the differences and accept them - il faut bien.
If you use one languages then come to discover the other, the differences come as a surprise, then you get used to them and accept them. Il faut bien, et ce n'est pas trop difficile.
It isn't that important, surely?
And no, I don't use the spaces before punctuation in French, no-one has ever remarked upon it, far less complained about it; and the use of the spaces in French documents or other texts doesn't hinder my comprehension.
Why all the fuss? Bof . . .

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

Pure pedantry, Dot, and blogging is fun. I must get on with another novel, but first I must oil the cricket bat, put air in the tyres of the bicycle, mow the lawn, prune the roses....
I have a little story about a lady flyer, but it would be out of place with the heroines of today's lead story (aren't they gorgeous?) True, "the 'plane doesn't know the difference", CB - there are no Ladies' and gents' toilets. Red faced and bursting, a news photographer flew with Lady Fairey (of Fairey Aviation) in a light plane at 6 a.m., having had several pints of beer with rugby players into the small hours. How to explain to her...
Luckily she noticed his squirming, and said: "There's a bottle under your seat, darling. Just piss in that and throw it out. Not the bottle, only the contents..."

[Azloon/Rob Furlong]

[“You’ve never had a colonoscopy?” He said, sounding shocked. “It’s a piece of cake.” You’d think he was talking about getting his teeth cleaned.

At first, I didn’t believe him. Maybe he was just saying that to make me feel better. “Did they give you a DVD of the procedure?” I asked. I wasn’t going to ask to see it, I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t lying.

“Are you kidding? I have a Best Of.”]

QWERTY -- this is from today's column by Ariel Leve, in timesonline, on the colonoscopy in NY vs the somewhat more repressed british approach.

i wasn't kidding about the DVD.

[qwerty]

Azloon, since we're into scatology, here's the latest on colonoscopy in France. They are threatening a national "anti-cancer du colon" campaign, and will send out to all people above a certain age a little kit with which you can detect if you have blood in your faeces. You're your own cancer diagnostician (initial stage anyway). Then if the result is positive you go to your GP and ultimately get a colonoscopy, which according to the TV reportage is done under a general as you call it.

I assume/hope I will never have colon cancer because I don't eat much red meat, and anyway I'm reading David Servan-Schreiber's book on preventing cancer of whatever kind by eating the right food, which I happen to like anyway (raspberries with curcuma vinaigrette, yummy!!)

[Azloon/Rob Furlong]

Qwerty

M. Servan-Schrieber

related to the guy who wrote "the american challenge" (le defi americain) back the 60s?

[qwerty]

Azloon, quelle Culture! His son - he's a psychiatrist with a brain tumor.

[Pierre Bernardi]

A bit more of this and I'll be able to do the Friday crossword in the New York Times. Dorothy King, Azloon/Rob Furlong, Qwerty, keep it up!

[dot king]

"Dorothy King, Azloon/Rob Furlong, Qwerty, keep it up!" Pierre Bernardi

I don't know what I've done up to now that could help with a crossword (hopeless at them myself), but here's my sixpenn'orth:
Oh, you mean the Mr J-J Servan-Schreiber, lover of Françoise Giroud?
They created L'Express together. (I believe I read somewhere that she created Elle, but not as sure of that.)
She was invited to be Ministre de la Condition Féminine in Giscard d'Estaing's government despite being from the political opposition; she recognised that G d'E had foreseen the change that was afoot for women and so she accepted.
Journalist, essayist, novelist, songwriter, filmwriter.
She gave most of France's top women journalists their start.
Probably, along with Simone de Beauvoir and Simone Weil, one of France's most influential women of the 20th Century.
You mean that Mr Servan-Schreiber - Jean-Jacques (aka JJSS) not David?

(I like to be helpful :))

[PJB]

Dot, you were more useful when you were discussing American popular music with Azloon on 'Beijing Olympics'. You need a strong US bent to do the Thursday and Friday versions of the NYT crossword. And Rex Parker's blog.

[m]

I was puzzled when learning to touch-type as to why the semi-colon had such a prominent position on the english (qwerty) keyboard for a relatively rarely used punctuation mark. I later learned that it's an important line-terminator for at least two common computer programming languages/environments - C++ and Matlab - so I think it's unlikely to disappear from the keyboard anytime soon. I'm not sure whether this will reassure those mourning its literary demise though!

[dot king]

"Dot, you were more useful when you were discussing American popular music with Azloon on 'Beijing Olympics'. You need a strong US bent to do the Thursday and Friday versions of the NYT crossword. And Rex Parker's blog." PJB

PJB Your reply to my comment is about as clear to me as the average crossword clue - I haven't a clue what it has to do with my post.

I take it you've never heard of Françoise Giroud then?

[dot king]

M: re the semi-colon (your name's so short I'm not sure whether you'll see this and I feel all insecure about it :))

It's now so long since I used a QWERTY keyboard that I can't remember where the semi-colon is. On the AZERTY keyboard, it's just above and at the right-hand extremity of the space bar, between comma and question mark to the left, and colon and slash to the right.

[m]

On a qwerty keyboard the semicolon is on the middle line and is the 'home key' of the little finger of the right hand for touch typing. It is in fact where the 'm' is on the azerty keyboard although I hadn't checked that in choosing my name! It's possible to change keyboard virtually on most computer systems which is useful for typing languages with accents or extra/different characters if you can remember the different layouts.

[AZERTY (trying it on for size))]

If QWERTY can be a reputable screen name, why not AZERTY which i may adopt since my use of 'azloon' has been impugned lately by suggestions that it is a reflection of my personality (which i resent/resemble very much :), and perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy (a notion i reject since present, tangible truth is not prophecy).

but i'd like to know : what the hell is a an AZERTY keyboard. and when did they come into existence? are they commonly used in europe?

note about using full names on this blog:

i was startled the other day when i was googling something and i saw my name (my real one, which i have been using recently) highlighted in a "first page" google summary. clicking on the link, i discovered the entirety of a post of mine from this blog.

ah, Google, the "Mother of the Ten Trillion Things." the truth of the Tao Te Ching lives on.

will my post be available to scholars/idiots a million years from now, when the asteroid, which will be about to destroy planet earth, hurtles towards us from deep space?

if so, we will have, by then, been trivialized beyond comprehension and deserve our extinction.

[dot king]

AZERTY - ça vous va à merveille!
The AZERTY keyboard is one which has (simply put) AZERTY where a QWERTY keyboard would have QWERTY.
In other words, the first six letters starting from the top left of the keyboard, discounting the top line with numbers and various bits and pieces (and the line with all the F and escape keys).
A touch-typist - which I am certainly not as some howler-typos have proved (why do I never see them until they appear on the blog?) and will no doubt continue to prove - would be able to explain better than I the positioning of the keys, but it's to do with the placing of the most commonly-occuring letters being placed for the most-used fingers, according to the language.
As I use a maximum of four fingers and look constantly from keyboard to screen to check what I'm writing (the effect to anyone watching would be a bit like the Muppet Show drummer - apart from the beard), I have been able to change from the QWERTY used in the UK to AZERTY used in France without too much trouble.
I know some skilled touch-typists though who have to stick with one or the other.
M seems to know, not only where his/her little finger goes at any given time whilst typing, so perhaps a better explanation will be available from that source shortly :)

[Daniel Strohl]

Azerty-Azloon, (AA)

"what the hell is a an AZERTY keyboard. and when did they come into existence? are they commonly used in europe?"

They are commonly used in France, and may be in other French speaking countries as well. They are in use since the appearance of the first typing machines.

The main difference with a Qwerty keyboard is that the Azerty k. has several accentuated letters in direct access through one single key (for instance ù à ç è é); however, these keys accommodate also other characters. For instance, if you type on the ù key in lower case mode, you will get the character ù; if you type on the same key in upper case mode (shift key), you will get %.

Another difference is that normal, non accentuated characters are not located on the same places on the keyboard. As an example,on the QWERTY keyboard, you have the characters QWERTY on the first character line and on the left side of the keyboard. On the Azerty keyboard, Q W E R T Y is replaced by A Z E R T Y. This is related with the occurence frequency of the various characters in a given language. For example : in French, the character "e" occurs very often; therefore, it is placed in a handy location on the keyboard.

The Germans have a so-called QWERTZ keyboard. Since our German friends are (almost) as complicated as their French neighbours, they have also got a lot of accents on their specific keyboard.

PS :

A propos complication : the Christian name of one of my German friends is EKKEHARD. He had many business relations in the USA. Everybody there called him HARDY; I asked him why. He said to me (with a smile): the Americans are too primitive to be able to memorize EKKEHARD; that is why I asked them to call me simply HARDY ... (he is tall and slim).

[Lily]

Azloon,

Azerty as an Azersatz for Azloon wouldn't work. It's a French size. You could try RAF ;). Azerwise, the real name could also serve to be remembered (not always a bad thing, at least until the arrival of that Azteroid).

I often think that it's a relief that it's only Lily who speaks on the blog while I remain in the background as her silent shadow.

Have there been more reports of schizophrenia since normal people have begun adopting pseudos on a large scale? I'll go and ask Lily; maybe she's an idea.

[Maggie G]

Azloon,

(I shall continue to call you Azloon because of its connection to Canada, and because I think it suits you.)

The AZERTY keyboard is the French keyboard. Those are the first six letters in the top row on the lefthand side. I figured this out yesterday by looking at my keyboard (it's French). Maybe your keyboard says QWERTY there -- does it? I can't remember exactly how the English keyboard looks. I know the M and the W are in different places , but can't remember about the A and the Q.

I've mentioned a couple of times on the blog that the reason I now call myself Maggie G (and not my full name) was that I too googled myself once and found all kinds of blog remarks for all the world to see, that will follow me around till the day I die. It's pretty embarrassing, in my opinion. I don't want to be making a fool of myself in front of people who know me personally, so I quickly dropped the family name.

Why do you say "ressemble" for "resent"?

Also, on one of the other threads, JA I think (am trying to keep his name out of Google) told that joke about signs in Austria saying, "There are no kangaroos in Austria", and you said "So what's your point?"
Didn't you get it? I thought it was really funny.

[qwerty]

Azloon, Azerty is my alter ego on French blogs, but since I never seem to blog on French blogs, you're welcome to use it. However I like "Azloon" - isn't a loon a mysterious romantic bird with a lonesome cry that appears in Stephen King's books about Maine lakes, as well as in Donna Tartt's "Secret History"? I've never met a loon, I think, but there are plenty diving birds in front of my house, maybe they are a French variety of loon.

I don't use my real name because employers, in particular, google you to find out who YOU REALLY ARE. Actually some professional directory has recently listed me, WITH MY PERSONAL ADDRESS, without asking me. Nothing I can do about it I suppose.

Dot: Clooney was TO DIE FOR on le Grand Journal.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

QWERTY - English keyboard
AZERTY - French keyboard
If Graham Greene had been writing in French (he spoke Fr. fluently but with a terrible accent and lived in Antibes) he would have called a character in his book Azerty instead of Qwerty.
A fast (85-100 w.p.m.) typist could use one but n o t the other.
A very expensive JAPY typewriter, with Fr. keyboard was stolen from the Army HQ in Fontainebleau in the 50's. In an idle moment I looked through the file: letters from the Special Investigation Branch of the British Military Police saying they believed it was a British National Serviceman who had stolen it. There were scores of letters between heads of bureau G1,G2.G3, G4 (but not G5 - that was the lavatory). One from the bureau of le Marechal Juin, one from the British General i/c the British element, one from General Montgomery in Versailles and one from the Scots Guards Colonel i/c G.1 (Admin) the section narrowed down by the investigators to this office. A carefuly worded letter to National Serviceman 22895*** (no names, no pack drill) Smith asking him if he could throw any light on the disappearance of a Japy typewriter about the time he was demobilised.
The last letter from the said Mr. Smith, now a civilian and safe from Army law, said: "Dear Sir, I haven't got it. Yours truly, 22895*** Smith (retired).

[dot king]

QWERTY - GC! I saw him and yes he was - really attractive mind - possibly the most attractive male mind in the world : )

(I thought Tanya was being a bit obvious though)

and about loons - I had the same reaction, or nearly - that I knew it was a bird as you often hear them calling in American literature

MAGGIE - Azloon did get the kangaroo joke, he was "doing" American auto-derision-humour
and when he say he both resents and resembles a remark, he's doing the same thing eg "only an MCP would think like that" reply "I resent / resemble that remark" ie: he both resents being called an MCP (which I don't think he is most of the time) and admits to being one.
Subtle I know, but it's there if you know what to look for -
I think he's a bright boy on the whole ; }

[AZERTY (trying it on for size))]

gros bisous, Dot

you 'get' it, and explained better than i could have.

[Roballoon]

QWERTY/AZERTY --

after further thought, i have decided to drop the idea of AZERTY even though it contains the postal code for arizona (AZ). what is an 'ERTY' anyway? but thanks for the offer

one of the doyennes ( :) ) of this blog has suggested Roballoon which i am considering. or R. Balloon.

who could have imagined having so much fun with pseudonyms before Al Gore invented the internet.

[qwerty]

Agree with you, Dot - was that George's mind I saw shining out of those eyes? Albeit he has a sexy mind, he's very physical, too. That Tanya - she practically raped him on the set. Why do you think GC only dates waitresses?

OK, that was a digression, this blog is about - er, let me check...acronyms, no...semi-colons.

[Maggie G]

Thanks Dot, for explaining about the kangaroo joke and resent/resemble. I am definitely no where near as sophisticated as you.

Just like to point out to you two (Qwerty, Dot) that the loon's nesting range is almost entirely in Canada, with only a tiny bit poking across the border into the northern parts of Washington state, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. (Am using a magnifying glass to look at the map in the bird book.)

Whereas almost the entire surface area of Canada is the loon's nesting range (excluding only a dry band across southern Saskatchewan and a small corner of southern Alberta), including way up into the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Baffin Island (and Alaska, of course).

"You often hear them calling in American literature." Even more so in Canadian literature. The loon is a NORTHERN bird.

The loon happens to be one of the most common symbols of Canada. Our dollar coin has a loon on it and is called a loonie.

(For your information. (Or should that be FYI?) Azloon already knows this.)

[WXCVBN?./]

Azloon wonders, what's an ERTY?
Is it nice, or something dirty?
Is it eagle-ish, or loony?
Is one owned by George T Clooney?
Is it singular or plural?
Town-ish, city-ish or rural?
Is it dignified or flirty?
Is it new, or over thirty?
Does it take a semi-colon?
Is it flat or slightly swollen?
Dot might know it; so might QWERTY;
Who will tell us -- what's an ERTY?

[Lily]

"what's an ERTY?"

This is an easy one:
ERNIE + BERT = ERTY

But what's an "WXCVBN?"?; I wonder.

[dot king]

MAGGIE, sorry, didn't mean to upset your Canadian sensibilities - of course there are some great Canadian writers who have loons calling too. Just recently read an excellent Canadian novel, but it was a "borrow" and both the title and author have gone back to their owner taking my memory with them! (Something about wolves in the title "softness of wolves"? - along those lines - anyway, excellent). Margaret Atwood takes up quite a lot of space on my bookshelves, and of course Annie Proulx set "The Shipping News" on Newfoundland.
I am a fairly non-exclusive reader really. It's a cheap way of travelling. Time-travel too.
And of course QWERTY mentioned Stephen King of whom I read quite a lot in the 1980's, but not recently, and his stories are often based in/around Maine; also Garrison Keillor from Anoka Minnesota, but he was better to listen to, reading his stories on Radio 4 than to read - or that was what I thought.

Nowthen WXCVBN?./, I wonder who you are? Someone with an AZERTY keyboard, which sort of narrows it down.
Superb ditty. I shall ponder on possible meaning(s) of "ERTY" throughout the day, see what I can come up with. In the meantime, let me just quote that great modern-day urban philosopher, Ali G, and say a resounding "RESPECK!" ; )

[dot king]

Isn't Maggie the Blog Poet Laureat?
and that poet has mastered rhyme, rhythm, humour - and - the semi-colon!
I think it's Maggie.
I'm copying and pasting that little gem.

[Roballoon]

Yes, Maggie IS the poet laureate. this is at least her second outburst of witty rhyme since i've been here. she's gooood !!

Maggie, i think i posted here about my encounter with canadian loons while camping on a deserted beach in mexico. one of my goals in life had been to see them in their southern habitat during winter,

that february morning, their warble woke me up (at first, i thought i was dreaming). i grabbed my telephoto lens and jogged the quarter mile to the water's edge and spotted them in several pairs about fifty feet offshore. i will send you the pix.

[Maggie]

Dot, since you say you're going to copy and paste the poem, you might want to make a small change in it.

I did it in rather a rush this morning, and on coming back this afternoon didn't really like the line "Is it new, or over thirty?"

That would be better as, "Is it YOUNG, or over thirty?", or perhaps better still, "Is it old, or under thirty?" But I think I would like to change it altogether, to "Is it sold in packs of thirty?" That would give a little more variety.

You can choose one of those lines and change it on your copy.

[dot king]

i will send you the pix. (Roballon to Maggie)

Please can I have one too?
Pretty please?

[qwerty]

Can someone send me the sound of the loon's call? Since Maggie's post, I've been researching the loon on the internet (a fascinating bird) but haven't been able to listen to it, my software doesn't seem to be sufficient for the only site I found that has it.
I prefer Azloon to Roballon.

[Roballoon]

QWERTY --

I sent the photos to Maggie/Dot.

i have a CD called 'Loon Magic' which combines various styles of music with loon calls. you might be able to download it from itunes, or another music service. it's quite nice. i notice from the cover that the CD is distributed by Northwood Press, P.O. Box 1360, Minocqua, Wisconsin 54548 USA; also in the UK by GALLANT, Heywood, OL10 2JG (Tel. (0706) 622202. (this info is 10 years old)

i also have a' loon flute' which you blow into while moving a slide in and out of its hollow core to produce the various calls: wail, tremolo,, yodel and hoot (the four calls of the common loon). i haven't mastered the calls, but i work at it occasionally when i am around loons.

re: azloon vs. other variations: roballloon, r. balloon, or another that occurred to me today: rob-al-loon, which has an exotic ring to it, but might get me put under surveillance in post 9/11 america.

so, the jury is out.

please text message your choice before April 20th (semi-colon) results will be announced on the next edition of American Idol.

:)

[dot king]

FWIW I prefer Azloon too.

How many thousand times do we get to vote? ; }

[Lily]

Roballoon,

you might also come under surveillance of animal protectionists - even if Roballoon sounds quite uplifting :); just NEVER ROB A LOON! (alors pas de "Loon à la Provençale"!)

So, in honour of all the loons who come passing by the Arizonan desert, I side with Dot and qwerty in favour of: Azloon. :) :)

[azloon]

Never one to pass up a self-declared, fifteen minutes of fame, i now pronounce myself:

AZLOON

(please stop your text messaging immediately (semi-colon) the server is currently overwhelmed. Dot, were you the one who voted 15,000 times?)

[azloon]

[just NEVER ROB A LOON! (alors pas de "Loon à la Provençale"!)] Lily

good point. in minnesota (home of many loons), loons are better protected than humans. being the 'state bird, there are heavy criminal sanctions against killing, torturing, or otherwise harming loons in any way.

'robbing a loon' would, no doubt, be frowned upon (although they are not known to carry much cash in their feathers). :)

Loon a la Provencale ? under glass? for dinner?

these are my brothers and sisters you're talking about. pleeeeeze!!

[dot king]

"(please stop your text messaging immediately (semi-colon) the server is currently overwhelmed. Dot, were you the one who voted 15,000 times?)" (Azloon)

I demand a recount!
Any excess votes should be placed carefully into (preferably unworn) socks and forwarded to Italy. : )

[qwerty]

Yeah, well same here with ortolans (ortaloons?). This was the subject of a previous blog some time ago, as everyone will remember.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

Nice to see the ortolan back. It must be Spring, when a young man's fancy lightly turns to what girls have been thinking about all winter. The author who was asked to write about a Frenchman who ate sparrows by the editor of The New Yorker, the late Geoffrey Bocca, (see my website under THE STORYTELLER) had dinner one night with Churchill and Beaverbrook, and when The Beaver went for a pee, he asked WSC (Clever, putting that "S" in there!) for advice on writing. "Read Kinglake" he said. Bocca bought "Travels in the Middle East" by Alexander William Kinglake
[this book has the story of two Englishmen, on camels, approaching across miles of desert, like the scene from Lawrenceof Arabia, and they pass without speaking (naturally, they had not been introduced) but one has second thoughts and stops, turns his head and says: "I have news of the plague." and then they have a converstion]
Back to Bocca at Chartwell again with The Beaver: "I read a book by Kinglake. Can you recommend anything else?" "More Kinglake" WSC snapped. Back in Charing Cross Road he discovered that AWK had written the history of the Crimean War. Ploughing through the eight volumes, Bocca told me: "I found in there all of Churchill's phrases used in his wartime speeches."
At the British Library I took out the 8 Volumes, but I fell asleep half way through Volume 2.

[Jeremy Drake]

This has nothing to do with French v. English. The semicolon has a role to play in both languages. As for typographic conventions, they differ. So what? To each his own.