Hearing Semicolons

I mentioned previously that your ability to write with proper grammar "by ear" depended on your ability to "hear" semicolons.

As silly as that probably sounds, I wasn't being facetious. (Hm… I'm not sure I like that word.)

It is possible to "hear" semicolons, and periods, and many other punctuation marks. Because they function so written words can parallel spoken speech. Ideally, someone when speaking should have slight pauses within sentences and a longer pause between them. Not everyone does, which is part of the problem.

Commas can be "heard" as momentary pauses, periods as longer ones, and semicolons as pauses in-between the other two lengths. But different people speak differently, so your ability to hear the punctuation varies with your ability to comprehend the grammar of the speaker. We all know someone who runs all his sentences together and never stops and continually says and.

Mimicking that can work superbly in dialogue (or stream-of-consciousness writing), particularly by using dashes. Otherwise, the hearer who writes grammar by ear must translate the improper spoken grammar into what it should have sounded like, before he can write it properly.

So that's my warning to those who would only determine grammar by ear. It has its pitfalls.