Mastodawn

Ah yes, because everyone has been on the edge of their seats wondering about the dramatic origin story of the @ sign 😴. #BBC, you did it again—turning #punctuation into a thrilling epic nobody asked for 📜➡️🐌. Next up: the secret life of the semicolon! 🎩✨
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250923-the-3000-year-old-story-hidden-in-your-keyboard #@Sign #originstory #semicolons #HackerNews #ngated

The 3,000-year-old story hidden in the @ sign

In Taiwan they call @ "little mouse". It's "strudel" in Hebrew, "dog" in Russian and "monkey's tail" in Dutch. The @ sign is a mirror, and its story goes back thousands of years.

BBC

Alex Celeste Jul 1

spur of the moment. probably not a sensible decision or design. whatever, id been hum/hawing about it for literally a decade, time's a wastin'

(though in hindsight: i would have got a better result actually bringing in the pin i wanted copied than describing it from memory)

the lines are "straight" irl, it's just my arm that's not, lol

#semicolons

Show thread

PSiReN-X

May 26

#QuickQuestion: By way of a #CollectiveDetermination...

🧙⚕️🤖🤖⚕️🧙 | ☕️🦹🦄🦹☕

Are #People using #Semicolons #Less:

#Yes;

#No;

#IT's #SammidgeTime;

What's a #Semicolon; or,

When's this #ExtinctionEvent going to happen...?

Poll ended at Jun 9 at 11:59am.

Furthering May 25

Decline in semicolon usage, and thank goodness, not least because people generally don't know how to use them correctly.

I try to get my non-native English-speaking colleagues to cut down on their use and to please do not use them in bullet lists.

"Too academic for our purposes!" I say.

Although a careful, considered semicolon, a literary semicolon, I can get behind.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/18/marked-decline-semicolon-use-english-books-study-suggests

#semicolons #punctuation #English

Marked decline in semicolons in English books, study suggests

Usage of punctuation down almost half in two decades as further research finds 67% of British students rarely use it

The Guardian

janwo May 21

#Semicolons are becoming increasingly rare; their disappearance should be resisted

https://theconversation.com/semicolons-are-becoming-increasingly-rare-their-disappearance-should-be-resisted-257019
#language #linguistics

Semicolons are becoming increasingly rare; their disappearance should be resisted

The Apostrophe Protection Society is going along very strongly; perhaps we need a Semicolon Supporting Society?

The Conversation

PSiReN-X

May 19

#TheRevolutionWillBePunctuated...

"Recent studies..." #People using #Fewer #Semicolons...

#Now... For some #GroovyMerch...

And, #IT's #OnlyMonday...

🧙⚕️🤖🤖⚕️🧙 | ☕️🦹🦄🦹☕

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/may/19/semicolons-do-you-know-how-to-use-one-and-would-you-even-notice-if-they-disappeared

Semicolons! Do you know how to use one and would you even notice if they disappeared?

Semicolons are on notice!

The Guardian

Hedgewizard 🐈May 19

I fought the copy editor; the copy editor won.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/18/marked-decline-semicolon-use-english-books-study-suggests

#semicolons

Marked decline in semicolons in English books, study suggests

Usage of punctuation down almost half in two decades as further research finds 67% of British students rarely use it

The Guardian

Thanet Creative Mar 28

Semicolons

I stumbled upon The Word Man talking about semicolons and had to share it.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rF-oeeq6IjQ

#grammar #semicolons

Before you continue to YouTube

Show thread

Stan Carey Mar 14

And Michael Tomasello's book "Origins of Human Communication" has a sentence 261 words long that's more intelligible than many sentences one tenth its length.

Clarity hinges on structure and sense, and his line uses 11 semicolons – here, the right choice – to form a precisely executed parallelism.

#writing #punctuation #MichaelTomasello #semicolons #copyediting #syntax

Stan Carey Mar 14

Sometimes four short sentences are better than a single 140-word behemoth built with creaky semicolons and sticky tape.

#AmEditing #copyediting #punctuation #writing #semicolons