Semicolon; My Favorite Punctuation

Don't you just love semicolons? It's a cross between the Zen-like meditation of a period and the Lamaze-like breathing of a comma: relaxed, peaceful and therapeutic.

It's a punctuation that asks you to take a longer pause and to calmly separate your thoughts from each other. It reminds us to take our time and choose our words and sentences carefully. It does not allow us to jump from one thought to another the way a comma would tell us to, or to keep on enumerating our thoughts (in jagged breaths) the way a colon would ask us to.

Also, a semi-colon looks sexier than any of the punctuations. Who wants to have the ghastly vampire bite of a colon, the tearful pauses of a comma, the condescending and selfish attitude of an apostrophe, the hyper jumps of the of an exclamation mark, and the drunk and incoherent garble of the ellipsis? The semicolon is even a perfect balance between the Yin and the Yang, if you get my point (thank you, Freud).

If the punctuations were in a classroom, semicolon would be an exceptional student. Why? She (I'd like her to be a strong female) is the ever meticulous writer carefully drafting her compositions and the cautious math whiz slowly solving her equations. She'll be a varsity player of the volleyball team and her eloquence will land her on a spot on the debate team. I bet she'll even be crowned as the Prom Queen what with her glamorous looks and star quality.

Know what I think? I think we should set aside a day in actual homage of this humble punctuation. We'll call it Semicolon Day, of course. It's going to fall somewhere in June because it's the middle of the year and semicolon is one balancing-act punctuation.

On Semicolon Day, people will be required to put on their best suits and dresses, and everyone MUST bring with them their sunny dispositions. Frowning will be a big no-no. People's conversations all throughout the day will be punctuated by semicolons:

"This is one lovely day; thus, I won't allow it to be ruined by the spilled coffee, by the traffic on my way to work, or by my grumpy boss."

"I hope everyone gets a bit of sunshine this Semicolon Day; a smile from me will definitely brighten up their day." (Flashes a smile to a passing stranger)

And everyone will flash their smiles to every person they meet and people will wonder why it can't be Semicolon Day everyday.

So you see, semicolons should be given the attention it rightly deserves. I think it's high time that semicolons come out of the shadows of colon, comma, and period. Semicolons deserve to make a mark, too and what a sexy mark they would leave!