The Curious Power of Punctuation

(newyorker.com)

27 points | by pepys a day ago ago

4 comments

  • chasil 32 minutes ago

    The play and motion picture Wit by Margaret Edson fixates on a poem by John Donne, Death be not Proud.

    The fixation is on the last line of the poem:

    And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

    The assertion is that Donne did not intend the use of a semicolon, and converting it to a comma significantly alters the meaning, profoundly uplifting the aura of spirituality.

    The play:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_(play)

    The poem:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Be_Not_Proud

    Discussion:

    https://lavelleporter.com/2015/02/13/readingwit/

    "Nothing but a breath—a comma—separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It’s a comma, a pause."

  • wpollock 2 hours ago

    Dang says tomhow is the better moderator.

    Dang, says tomhow, is the better moderator.

  • piskov 4 hours ago

    > what about, say, the war in Gaza?

    That was not on my top-5 list of things that may be in that article.

  • noworld 4 hours ago

    Let’s eat, Grandma.