David Crystal

Now, how shall I start this review? I loved this book. I really did. (Too abrupt.) I loved this book, I really did. (Too rushed.) I loved this book: I really did. (Too planned.) I loved this book — I really did. (Too afterthoughty.) I loved this book... I really did. (Too uncertain.) I loved this book; I really did. Ah, that’s more like it. The semicolon gives me the best of both worlds. It helps me pause, and have a think, and yet pushes me forward to what I want to say next. It separates and unites simultaneously. It does a job that no other punctuation mark does. And the way to see this is to develop a sense of the contrast. What happens if we punctuate a sentence differently?

You may have read about this during the Iraq war. A group of local people approach an American position. A US soldier holds out his hand at arm’s length, palm outwards, in the traditional gesture of ‘halt’. The locals keep on coming. He repeats the gesture. They keep advancing. So he opens fire. The locals turn out to be civilians, not fighters. The Americans evidently didn’t know that this gesture, throughout the Middle East, is a friendly greeting. It means ‘hi’ rather than ‘halt’. Very few gestures are universal, and François Caradec’s fascinating collection shows the way they vary around the world.