Harry Potter and the Murder of the English Language

[thistlechaser]

"It was a room, a very disordered, dusty room. Paper was peeling from the walls; there were stains all over the floor; every piece of furniture was broken as though somebody had smashed it. The windows were all boarded up."

"Hermione was screaming; Ron was yelling; there was a blinding flash as the wands in Black's hand sent a jet of sparks into the air that missed Harry's face by inches; Harry felt the shrunken arm under his fingers twisting madly, but he clung on, his other hand punching every part of Black it could find."

"Crookshanks had joined the fray; both sets of front claws had sunk themselves deep into Harry's arm; Harry threw him off, but Crookshanks now darted toward Harry's wand--"

All those quotes were taken from three consecutive pages. Semicolons are good, fine, and wonderful things to use, but should not be used many times in the same paragraph! Arg! They weren't even always used correctly!

If you were reading a fanfic with punctuation like this, would you finish the story or drop it?

"Harry-- we've got to go for help--" Hermione gasped; she was bleeding too; the Willow had cut her across the shoulder.

Wondering if this was just a chapter that the editor missed or if JKR writes like this all the time, I picked up PoA and opened it to a random page and checked the first paragraph my eyes fell on:

Harry put on a huge burst of speed; the wind was roaring in his ears; he
stretched out his hand, but suddenly, the Firebolt was slowing down--

How in the heck hadn't I noticed the abuse of semicolons before? (And we won't even mention the dashes.) I can't even continue reading the books now, I want to get out a red pen and correct every error I find. (Yes, that would leave the text itself totally lost in the red ink.)

How in the world did the editors not catch and correct all this? Or I wonder if it's like... what's her name, the woman who writes the Interview with a Vampire series. Anne Rice. After her third(?) book, she demanded that there be no editor for her books. Worse than that, she writes one single draft and has that published. She doesn't edit it herself and won't let anyone else do it. (She claims there's something in her head that can edit the whole book before she puts it down on paper.) I wonder if JKR's semicolon abuse is her "style" and she doesn't want people to change it?

Bah. Once again, I am proud (and sad) that so much fanfic does it better than the original books.

ETA: I wonder if maybe it really was an editor's slip? The last chapter of PoA was almost free of semicolons, and when I randomly picked other spots, there were big sections without overuse of them. Strange!

Comments

[bouteillebleu.livejournal.com]

How in the world did the editors not catch and correct all this?

Judging by the sheer size of Order of the Phoenix compared to, well, normal children's books, it looks like her editor's letting her have pretty much free rein to write as much as she wants, as badly as she wants, just as long as people continue to buy the books (as they no doubt will). The large amounts of HARRY YELLING in CAPITAL LETTERS for pages and pages were almost painful to read.

I admit that I'm not sure myself on how the semi-colon's supposed to be used, so I probably wouldn't be as averse to those sentences as you were. I agree that she does look like she's overdoing it, though. More than one semicolon in a sentence, and it starts to look like it's going wrong.

I can't even continue reading the books now, I want to get out a red pen and correct every error I find. (Yes, that would leave the text itself totally lost in the red ink.)

Go for it! Better still, grade it and send it back. "D+. A good attempt, Miss Rowling, but you ought to do better."

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Go for it! Better still, grade it and send it back. "D+. A good attempt, Miss Rowling, but you ought to do better."

Hee! Wouldn't that be funny?

I admit that I'm not sure myself on how the semi-colon's supposed to be used, so I probably wouldn't be as averse to those sentences as you were.

A semicolon should be between two complete but related sentences; a sentence fragment should never be on one side of it.

In one of the examples I posted, she used them between items in a list. In that case, a comma would have been much better. However, in all of the sentences, the darned things should have been rewritten to be smooth and to remove some of the semicolons.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Just a thought...I've no idea if this is true or not, but there are other punctuation rules that are different in British English. Is it possible that this might be like that too? It is hard to believe that an editor could miss so much like that...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I wondered that as well, but as far as I know punctuation is used the same across languages. (At least in the English/French/German sort, I have no idea about Chinese or something way different like that.)

[frances-jane.livejournal.com]

Am British, and find her punctuation as offensive as you. But! There's nowt wrong with using semi-colons in lists; they act as a 'super comma'. You should only use them if the list contains other commas though, really (in which case it's clearer).

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! You know, I had forgotten about the "super comma" thing! (Her list had no commas though, so I still feel she should have used commas instead of the semicolons.)

I just started GoF, and there appear to be no excessive semicolons so far -- I guess it really was a failing of the editor (and/or her style when left unedited).

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm pretty sure I've seen some stuff that indicates that Brits do things a bit differently with some punctuation. The thing that comes to mind has to do with dialogue. I can't remember what the difference is, but I swear I've read that they do have one.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hm, okay. Interesting!

[ecoli-bakery.livejournal.com]

Perhaps she's referring to ' vs "? And including vs excluding punctuations (, . ;) before closing the quote?

Oh, anyway. Am Chinese, and we follow the same punctuation rules as the English/French/German sort (except that some of them look different). I do believe the rules are universal... Correct me if I'm wrong.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Am Chinese, and we follow the same punctuation rules as the English/French/German sort

Ah, that's interesting to know! Thanks for the comment.

[frances-jane.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. I noticed the semi-colon abuse ages ago - when I was writing my last schnoogle fic, in fact. 75% of it was utter crap, so I decided to make an effort in the third to last chapter, and used JKR's style as a template. The result? So they went; with a gratuitous semi-colon; something else happened; it was all good; or bad, if you think about it; actually, definitely more bad than good; someone did something unrelated.

Since then... I have cut down on semi-colons, but... still influenced by Ms Rowling... done the ellipses to death... especially when they're not needed... in fact, utterly misplaced....

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

*laughs at the example* Hee! Poor, poor person, using her style as a template! :)

I also tend to use ellipses a lot... especially in my LJ-writing. For me... it's like... a pause to think while I type. But when I write real stuff... you know, fics and whatever... I try to control my use of them. ...it doesn't always work though.

[niqui.livejournal.com]

i just have to say that this comment had me laughing out loud hard enough to get my cat (who was sleeping on my shoulders) to sigh loudly and rearrange himself. :-)

[cheshyre]

Have you read Lynne Truss' Eats Shoots and Leaves? Based upon this post, I think you would enjoy it very much.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Nope, I haven't heard of that. I'll keep my eyes open for it though. Thanks!

[arachnethe2.livejournal.com]

I understand that an overuse of semicolon and/or systematic written errors of an established writer might drive the reader mad. But still I can't see it as a murder of the language. The latest one looks far far different. The oposite: the fact that people are freaking over such important trivia is the sign for me, that the language is very well alive.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Exaggeration. An attempt at a funny subject line. Not to be taken literally.

[arachnethe2.livejournal.com]

Ok, noticed, everything allright. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I hope my comment didn't come off as snippy. I recognized your icon and thought you were a LJ-friend or lurker (so you should have known my style of writing), but I just saw my link was posted in daily_snitch, so you probably don't know me at all!

Nice first impression, huh? :)

[arachnethe2.livejournal.com]

I know you from being around the discussions on lj as well. And yes, I understood, that you just suffered a fit of larger proportions, like everyone does when dealing with his own native language. But the headline misdirected me a bit: A murder of english language? Then: by overuse of an semicolon? WTF?
But don't worry, one has to be far far more snippy to turn me off. :)

[mark356.livejournal.com]

JKR is an Austen-o-phile. If you think JK's semicolon addiction/abuse is bad, you haven't read any nineteenth-century literature.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ha! That makes sense.

Thanks!

[sathien.livejournal.com]

Bah. Once again, I am proud (and sad) that so much fanfic does it better than the original books.

i was reading (yet again) Cinnamon's Beautiful World when my OotP arrived. excited and anxious, i almost started reading the moment i laid my hands on the book. 5 chapters down and the milk on the table suddenly seemed a lot more interesting. i mean, wth's with the poorly induced angst! a lot of fanfic authors do so much better.

but then again, still gotta respect the founder of it all. yeah.

[sathien.livejournal.com]

oh and i got here via daily_snitch. sorry for butting in like that.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

No need to apologize! Thanks for commenting. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

but then again, still gotta respect the founder of it all.

That's what it comes down to for me. While she might not have written it well (grammar-wise), she did come up with all of the ideas and characters. We owe her for that!

[sathien.livejournal.com]

true, true. no JKR = no HP fics = no funfun shipping. i'm adding you. :) that okay?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Sure thing! Thanks!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Well, a lot of the comments here are saying 'he said/she said' is fine, so I wouldn't worry about it! :)