Ink: Bwahahahah

[tmcg]

Probably everyone here has seen the story about the semicolon tripping up the folks who wanted to stop the same-sex weddings in San Francisco, but since it weds two of my favorite topics (punctuation and domestic partnership) so beautifully, I have to blog it.

Thanks, DireRed.

Comments

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

I hadn't seen this, how cool. Is that semicolon placement grammatically correct, or just legalese?

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that it isn't grammatically correct but that, because it's mispunctuated and has a word missing, it doesn't make sense and it doesn't say what they meant it to say. The main problem is the missing word.

The Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund had asked the judge to issue an order commanding the city to "cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to and/or solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples; to show cause before this court."

It's not entirely fair to criticize a partial excerpt of the sentence (and from only one, online source), but it seems that what they wanted to say was "...cease and desist, or show cause [for not ceasing and desisting] before this court." It should be a comma, not a semicolon; but if the word "or" had been in there, they probably could have gotten away with the semicolon.

So it's really "the 'or' story," not "the semicolon story." :)

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

Aha, that makes sense to me now. Thanks.

Re:

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Or even better, put the "or" where the semicolon is. That's what the judge said. So maybe it is "the semicolon story." I'm sleep-deprived and high on antihistamines. Ignore me. :)

Re:

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

Sick? Boo.

Re:

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I became vulnerable to either con crud or an Amtrak rhinovirus by running myself into the ground, and proceeded to get almost no sleep for a week, which meant there was no getting well. Feeling a bit better today, after a good night's sleep. :)

Re:

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

Ew. I'm glad you're feeling better, though :)

Re:

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Email coming your way in a moment.