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Something I’ve been thinking about lately: the difference between semicolons, colons, em dashes, and parentheses. So often they’re misused and/or overused, and of course there are the technical and grammatical rules. But I remember a professor who put in a new perspective.
I was, like, 19, and I remember thinking he would come in tipsy probably every class, but it’s stuck with me ever since. Effectively, it’s more about emphasis—more akin to italics than hard-and-fast rules. In essence:
Semicolons: That gut feeling telling you these two sentences are intrinsically connected but kinda not? Use this one.
Colons: You’re about to say something super important. Like, about to drop something really profound et cetera et cetera.
Colons: You’re about to say something super important. Like, about to drop something really profound et cetera et cetera.
Em dashes: Abrupt + significant. Not as significant as a colon, but still important. When used as parentheses—like so—they’re intrusive, bringing more attention to the thing info than normal parentheses.
Parentheses: The info is important but the reader could live without it.
Parentheses: The info is important but the reader could live without it.
So when I edit someone’s work and say, “You’re using too many em dashes,” it’s not coming from a technical/grammatical place (usually); it’s me saying that too many of them dilutes the impact of each individual use. The same goes for semicolons, colons, and parentheses.
“Anyway, that one college course was clearly worth the money,” he said, twelve years later.
Adding to this because a few have asked what constitutes “overuse.” Well, really, it’s a matter of opinion. But let’s look at the em dash. It’s wonderful; most writers I know love it, too. Why is that?
I imagine because it’s intrusive and it *looks* like it. Em dashes visually break up the monotony of letters and words, drawing the reader’s eye to it. It’s super effective if there’s one or even a few on a page.
But if you have so many on a page that the reader doesn’t know where to look first (and this isn’t the author’s intention), then how are they impacting the reading experience? That’s what I’m thinking about as an editor—not just what is being said but how it appears on the page.
