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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab
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To: opalapril who wrote (331)1/3/1998 8:24:00 AM
From: Jack Clarke  Read Replies (1) of 4711
 
Opalapril,

Every day infantile business majors, like boys at play, fill SI's message boards with
their silly games of pretense. Indian Shorts whoop and holler around the circled
wagons of Cowboy Longs who bravely defend their portfolios of womenfolk and
children; all for nought by day's end when Mother calls them home for dinner and,
sadly, reality returns."

It's an interesting sentence, with some bite, but something is lacking in the way it's constructed. The "all for nought" seems to modify the action in the previous clauses and seems to be "trying" unsuccessfully to modify "by day's end" in the last clause. I think the whole thing would be better done by making the last clause a separate sentence: "And it's all for nought, when by day's end Mother calls them home for dinner, and, sadly, reality returns."

I can't find anything in Fowler about using a semicolon other than when followed by an independent clause, but I do not dispute that it can be done. I just don't think the above give a good example of that use.

Jack
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