Word: semicolonized
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...European allies have been fulminating with advice about how we should handle the dangerous business of housing these men. Our allies extravagantly insist that every semicolon of the Geneva Convention, a treaty among sovereign countries designed to protect honorable soldiers, also belongs to the self-appointed terrorists and saboteurs who attack guards and deliberately kill civilians. Rumsfeld considers the detainees to be "unlawful combatants." Late last week Colin Powell reportedly joined the debate, asking President Bush to assume the detainees to be lawful POWs unless a military board finds otherwise...
...economic planning? Is this some kind of hidden IQ test? Do McLaughlin and McDonald really think that the piece by Bridget L. Kerrigan '92 is on par with George Orwell? Do they really think that the anonymously published Gen Ed 105 paper is "cleverly written, funny and sardonic?" ("The semicolon is the common thread that casts a shadow over their efforts to pave the way for crossing a future bridge over non-racist waters...
...point he suggests putting a small bottle of oil to the ear, the better to hear the ancient waters. At another he intones, "You can't find oil if you are not honest; I'm not sure I know how to explain this." The rueful part, after the semicolon, redeems the rest. He natters on about his girlfriend, Elizabeth Hughes, whose mild, pleasant drawings accompany the text. Is he happy with her? Without her? Will they marry? One wonders whether, as a suitor, he will ever top an early gambit, when he invited her to a park to share...
Punctuation marks are the road signs placed along the highway of our communication -- to control speeds, provide directions and prevent head-on collisions. A period has the unblinking finality of a red light; the comma is a flashing yellow light that asks us only to slow down; and the semicolon is a stop sign that tells us to ease gradually to a halt, before gradually starting up again. By establishing the relations between words, punctuation establishes the relations between the people using words. That may be one reason why schoolteachers exalt it and lovers defy it ("We love each other...
...martial music. It has a jackboot rhythm. Words cannot bend and curve. A comma, by comparison, catches the gentle drift of the mind in thought, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling and returning along the course of its own sweet river music; while the semicolon brings clauses and thoughts together with all the silent discretion of a hostess arranging guests around her dinner table...