Tag Archives: excessive punctuation

Eg ie

Why does anyone still, as per the style guide that came my way recently, add full stops to eg & ie? To avoid ambiguity, ie, for fear of someone reading ‘eg’ as ‘egg’? Surely not. It can only be a hangover from ancient grammar primers which held, eg, e.g. to be correct, and eg incorrect. (Written, no doubt, by authors who could have told you what the e & the g stood for.)

In truth, the full stops in e.g. and i.e. are simply clutter. They serve no purpose, and should be dispensed with. In a hundred years they will be as redundant as the dash you sometime encounter in the word ‘to-day’, if you read books from a hundred years ago.

Which is heartening, and all part of a general trend in the language, away from complexity (to show how clever we are, and demarcate us clearly from the great unwashed) and toward simplicity: the notion that language is there to communicate ideas rather than to broadcast status, and that it serves that role best when redundant clutter is removed.

As with any punctuation, the acid test is simple. If in doubt, try cutting it out. Does it make any difference? Is anything lost, has clarity been sacrificed, ambiguity introduced? If the answers are no, don’t put it back. Any full stops, eg, in ie.

Bring up the semi colons

Reading Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies at the moment, not least to see if my my somewhat jaundiced take on Wolf Hall was skewed by the hype, but I have to say that reading the new one reinforces rather than refutes my earlier impression.

You can see why people rave about her, and them, and there’s no denying she’s a brilliant writer, but there’s something not quite right about them, for me at least. Something to do with showing off, and being a bit too pleased with herself. I’m on record, for just one example, as a staunch defender of the semi colon, but most writers – even good writers – use them sparingly. Mantel applies ’em by the bucketload, and it can get a bit wearisome. The erudition is all a tad relentless for my liking, and she does wear her research on her sleeve rather too much.  

The art, they say, lies in concealing the art. I’m not sure Hilary Mantel really manages that – or even aspires to it. It feels as though she wants people to notice – and appreciate – how clever she is.

Having said all of which, boy, the woman can write! She drops in little turns of phrase that just stop you in your tracks – a dejected character looking ‘cold as a doorstep orphan‘. And how about this for the dying days of the middle ages: ‘But chivalry’s day is over. One day soon moss will grow in the tilt yard. The days of the moneylender have arrived, and the days of the swaggering privateer; banker sits down with banker, and kings are their waiting boys.’