It was a comma. A stupid little puke-ass comma. Not even something interesting like a colon or a question mark. Nope, a comma. A comma is nothing more than a messy period – a bad dot. A dot with a dribble.... One little asswipe of a comma. A comma has no status, it's used to separate thoughts, a pause, a "caesura"… So what's the difference between a comma and a dash? A dash is lovely - it performs the same function only it's more stately. There are different types of dashes as well which makes it that much more exciting. Plus (yes, there's more!), the dash is related to a visual element, the 'n' or the 'm'. How fabulous is that? The comma has no definition other than it's a poorly created dot. It has no other use in language. Even a semicolon is rather vague and bland. It separates major elements of a sentence - big deal. I can do that with a dash. The only thing a semicolon has going for it is that it also contains a dot. But think about it - a semicolon is nothing more than a colon with a comma instead of a period. It's not even a full colon. A colon is at least used to direct attention to a list, a quotation or something interesting that follows it. The semicolon is only vaguely a colon, not even worthy of a full colon - that's because it contains the damn comma!
I have my own thoughts on punctuation and there are just some marks that are a lot better looking and more useful than others. Take the breve or the caret - they're rather lovely and we don't use them much. Diacritic marks are widely used in many languages but alas, not in English. the dieresis, the accent (both acute and grave), the lovely cedilla or my two favorites - the tilde and umlaut….
I say we rethink our punctuation, particularly hideous little marks such as the comma. It can cause so many problems for so many and it's just not that great of a mark to start with. I think we should all revisit Victor Borge - a man who truly understood punctuation…
