i’m still not sure why i was admitted to the undergrad institution i attended, but i like to think it was in part due to my essay, on the charms of my enthusiastic overuse of the semicolon – that punctuation mark useful for “imply[ing] a relationship between two statements without having to make clear what that relationship is,” as slate founder michael kinsley explains it.  paul collins, writing for the same site, is a bit less gentle: “the semicolon allows woozy clauses to lean on each other like drunks for support.”

his article, in the june 20 issue, casually mentions that the semicolon existing at all is a fascinating bit of happenstance.  when italian printer aldus manutius composed the italic typeface, reasoning that slanting letters would allow more words to fit onto the page, he threw in a semicolon with the standard punctuation sheet.  being a fifteenth century scholar, he was familiar with greek literature – indeed, his goal was to stem the loss of the greek masterpieces by reprinting them all – and, as such, felt that any serious typeface should be able to accurately reproduce greek in translation.  the semicolon having been wildly popular in ancient greece, it took its place in his new italic set, for the first time in print. 

like the dash (which collins notes the romantics used to death) or the ellipsis (a favorite of twentieth century writers, especially the beats), the semicolon is unique in allowing the development of the form of written language without, strictly speaking, modifying its content.  and yet its continued existence is due to a curious series of coincidences – greek texts being in vogue; a printer designing a new typeface; that typeface becoming wildly popular due to its economics – which makes it clear that language is the product of evolution.  and if language, which seems of necessity to be one of the more standardised concepts in our world, is evolved, how can we say anything else (religion, biology) is not?