Oh, English.

June 10, 2010 5:13 PM

Punctuation filter: Comma, colon, semicolon, dash? Is what I'm saying even grammatically correct?

Here's a simplified example of what I want to say:

"There are two dogs. The first dog eats blueberries. The second, strawberries."

I want, for stylistic reasons, to leave out both the subject and the verb in the third sentence. Does that mean I need a colon after the second sentence instead of a period? A semicolon? Or is there some other punctuation I need to use after "The second," to make it work? Is this type of construction even grammatically correct? This may be glaringly obvious but it's driving me nuts!

Thanks for your help!

posted by a.steele to Writing & Language (23 answers total)

I'd think a comma after blueberries would do it.
posted by Mngo at 5:15 PM on June 10, 2010

Period (just like in your example) or a semicolon. Either is fine; it just depends on how you want it to read.
posted by Forktine at 5:24 PM on June 10, 2010

depending on the broader context, I'd go for either a comma or a semi-colon: the latter if a formal or academic context, the former if not. which is to say that either is good, grammatically speaking, and what you're left with is a stylistic choice. can you give us more details?

(also, now that I've repeated the structure of your example, I'm not sure about the comma between second and strawberries.)
posted by spindle at 5:29 PM on June 10, 2010

Semicolon. The third phrase doesn't have a verb, so treating it as a sentence isn't right.
posted by flabdablet at 5:30 PM on June 10, 2010

semicolon; as displayed above.
posted by zombieApoc at 5:37 PM on June 10, 2010

Well, when was the last time you read anything published that featured a semi-colon? Probably the last time you read a correct rendering of who versus whom, and it sounded awkward, yes?

Your rendering is perfectly acceptable.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 5:38 PM on June 10, 2010

Best answer: You're fine. A semicolon would also work. In either case, the third sentence is acting as an independent clause; the verb is implied.
posted by cloudburst at 5:38 PM on June 10, 2010 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: This isn't for anything formal or academic, so my concerns are merely stylistic. It's for a poem I'm writing just because (that maybe a handful of people will see). I'm mostly concerned about how to make the second part clear enough that you know "the second" means "the second dog," especially if it's broken up as such:

"The first dog
eats blueberries
for lunch;

the second,
strawberries
which he finds very tasty."

I think I'm leaning towards a semicolon. Thanks for the help so far. Other advice (given the new information) is always welcome.
posted by a.steele at 5:41 PM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: And now I'm seriously considering writing a poem about dogs that eat berries.
posted by a.steele at 5:43 PM on June 10, 2010 [4 favorites]

Technically speaking, a semi. Stylistically, the period is fine. Definitely not a comma.
posted by zagyzebra at 5:43 PM on June 10, 2010

And now I'm seriously considering writing a poem about dogs that eat berries.

I think you already did! :)
posted by wwartorff at 6:05 PM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I pretty much agree with the above comments (except the person who said semicolons don't show up in published writing!).

I think a semicolon is best:

"The first dog eats blueberries; the second, strawberries."

A period is technically correct but seems worse to me:

"The first dog eats blueberries. The second, strawberries."

There's no real grammatical difference between those two. The semicolon version works better because the first sentence should flow gracefully into the second.

This is incorrect:

"The first dog eats blueberries, the second, strawberries."

That's a "comma splice." Every once in a while, you can get away with a comma splice. But why bother using informal punctuation when you're already using such an esoteric sentence construction?

A dash would be technically correct, I suppose, but overly dramatic.

One more thing: you asked:

Or is there some other punctuation I need to use after "The second," to make it work?

No, I'm pretty sure a comma is the one and only acceptable way to punctuate "the second, strawberries."
posted by Jaltcoh at 6:20 PM on June 10, 2010

Best answer: Fellow poet here! I think a semi colon is fine. You could use an em-dash or a period, too.

You don't necessarily have to use grammatically correct punctuation in poetry. It's all about making sure the idea gets through to the reader and that the punctuation provides the "break" you want at that particular point. You don't have to go all Dickinson or cummings on your poem, but a bit of leeway is okay!
posted by Lizsterr at 6:23 PM on June 10, 2010

Best answer: I'm a poet also, and like Lizsterr, I don't think it's necessary to use textbook punctuation in every case. I punctuate according to how long I want the reader to pause. People drop their voices at the end of a sentence and swallow the final word, and this goes for inner voices too. A period will drop the word "lunch," and a semicolon or a comma will leave it mid-air. It all depends how you want things to sound. A period in combination with a strophe break will sound completely end-stopped, but a dash will carry the reader over to the next strophe, if you want to create a sense of impetus, of the poem gathering momentum.

When I work too long on a poem, I get what I call Big Picture Blindness, where I'm so focused on the order of these particular words that I lose all sense of larger syntax. This is sometimes good, but more often it's my cue to go eat some green grapes or fight my cat or chase the mailman. These activities are known to return perspective.
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 8:20 PM on June 10, 2010

Can those of you (and it's a lot of you, so I believe you're right) who say semicolon is the way to go, but the rules of semicolon usage don't jibe with what you're saying at all. Perhaps I'm missing a rule, or can't remember it, but there are only three uses I know of for a semicolon: to join two independent clauses; to join two independent clauses where the second clause begins with a conjunctive adverb; or to separate elements of a list in a sentence (like this one).

What allows the two clauses in question to be joined by a semicolon?
posted by tzikeh at 9:27 PM on June 10, 2010

What allows the two clauses in question to be joined by a semicolon?

They are both independent, so semicolon usage is officially condoned. Separate with a period or join with a semicolon, your choice. There are differences in how it will read, but not differences in meaning.
posted by Forktine at 9:59 PM on June 10, 2010

The second, strawberries. That's not an independent clause.

However, in the case of poetry, I do think a semicolon is best here.
posted by desuetude at 10:42 PM on June 10, 2010

The punctuation doesn't matter in this case, but it's good to know!

This is a kind of ellipsis.

A semicolon is good for this because it indicates that the things it separate have some kind of extra relationship. In this case, it's hinting that you need to go back to the previous clause to get the missing dog and strawberry.

This is stuff you find in the small print of the instruction manual that comes with the semicolon.
posted by fleacircus at 5:14 AM on June 11, 2010

Er, not the strawberry, just the dog.
posted by fleacircus at 5:15 AM on June 11, 2010

And the eating. Uh. Yeah. Okay, leaving now.
posted by fleacircus at 5:15 AM on June 11, 2010

The second, strawberries. That's not an independent clause.

Yes it is, as long as you (correctly) read into it the elided words -- that comma stands in for "dog eats." So "the second, strawberries" is, in this context, exactly the same as "the second dog eats strawberries."
posted by Forktine at 6:24 AM on June 11, 2010

"The second, strawberries" is an independent clause because it has a subject "the second" and a verb--"eats"--that happens to be omitted and substituted by a comma. So it can either be appended to the first independent clause through a semicolon, or stand alone as its own full-fledged sentence. The choice between the two is a question of better or worse, not right or wrong.

As fleacircus notes, this is a form of elliptical construction, whose exact grammatical nature is discussed here, for example.
posted by drlith at 6:39 AM on June 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Wow, thanks so much for all the technical and stylistic advice. I should've known you guys would go well beyond just showing me what's "correct." And thanks to fleacircus and drlith for telling me exactly what the hell this thing is called, should I ever want to use it again. Semicolon it is! Who knows if this thing will ever see the light of day, but at least I know it reads the way I want it to.
posted by a.steele at 9:41 AM on June 11, 2010