12 ms·

The Birth of the Semicolon

45 points by Osiris30 7y ago

king-rat 7y ago
Interesting that the semicolon was born out of a need for a longer pause in spoken language, rather than as a means to connect two independent clauses as is taught today
- goatlover 7y ago
  Or as an unnecessary end of statement character to clutter up your code with.
  - outworlder 7y ago
    > Or as an unnecessary end of statement character to clutter up your code with. To the benefit of compiler writers, in detriment of everyone else.
    - reificator 7y ago
      I've come in to fix bugs caused by ASI many a time. Having an explicit character to denote the end of a statement is much more valuable than people pretend. And don't get me started on meaningful whitespace vs brackets.
      - outworlder 7y ago
        > Having an explicit character to denote the end of a statement is much more valuable than people pretend. No, I'm not talking about automatic semicolon insertion. I'm talking about _ not having semicolons at all _. Many languages are like that – in fact, almost all languages which are not descendants of the C branch.
        reificator 7y ago
        I think you quoted the wrong part of the message there, but I understand. Still, without a line terminator you either have to use newlines, which sometimes will help make cleaner code and sometimes will make a mess of temporary variables and such. Or you have ambiguity, which is why I bring up the the anecdotes about fixing ASI errors.
    - goatlover 7y ago
      Which makes it interesting that the Go creators, being heavily into C before, decided to ditch the end of statement semicolon.
- bitwize 7y ago
  Virtually all punctuation marks started as prosody hints, indicating intonation and pauses, suggesting how the text is to be read aloud. In fact you can argue that this is still the case: it was only later that we invented grammatical structure rules for them, and even those are applied only in certain contexts like professional writing. In casual writing, we tend fall back to using punctuation as prosody markers, for example: "Worst. Episode. Ever."
  - jessriedel 7y ago
    Yes, reading a transcript without punctuation can give one a visceral sense of what drove its introduction.
- lighthazard 7y ago
  If there are two independent clauses, why not keep it 2 sentences? I personally use it to connect two separate thoughts that have a related subject.
  - NobodyNada 7y ago
    "Independent clause" doesn't mean "unrelated thought," it's grammar terminology for a phrase that makes sense as a simple sentence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_clause
- gdcohen 7y ago
  Also that the article talked about the colon as having a longer pause than a semicolon (different to how it is used today).
- markdown 7y ago
  Did they not have the ellipsis back then?
ggg3 7y ago
anyone knows what "ufq" means in the latin page?
- tom_ 7y ago
  It's "usq", with a long S: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s - so it's an abbrevation for "usque".
- jfengel 7y ago
  It's "usq"; that's a medial S (ſ) rather than an f. It's short for "usque", meaning "up to" or "as far as". A rough translation of the sentence would be "The experience teaches you as far as it can; the author can't say beyond what they've been given to speak."
- kleinerhexer 7y ago
  “usque” (see <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dusque> http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...), because the second letter is a long s (“ſ”), not an “f”, and “q;” is the abbreviation for “que” as mentioned in the text: That semicolonish mark at the end of the fourth line from the bottom isn’t a semicolon, it’s an abbreviation for que, Latin for “and.”
acqq 7y ago
The typography on the scanned 1494 page is beautiful. I also remember seeing the ancient Roman grave stones with the very nice letters, but I admire how they developed the types for printing.
- benbreen 7y ago
  Aldus Manutius and his workshop assistants had an incredible eye for design. Not just the typography but the layouts as well tend to be more elegant (to my eyes) than what we have today. One of my favorite examples: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hypnerotomachia_...
bobthechef 7y ago
„‚cultural rebirth’ after the gloomy Middle Ages” Not the point of the article, but that slanderous characterization of the Middle Ages for some reason refuses to die even centuries following the fanaticism of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. It is well understood that the Middle Ages were a remarkeable period, culturally speaking. The Renaissance frankly grew out of the Middle Ages.
jackschultz 7y ago
If we're speaking about punctuation, there really needs to be another mark in between a period and exclamation point, something that means what you said is sincere. Responding to a text by saying "Thanks." or "Thanks!" is so different. If I was talking to someone and they gave a compliment, I'd want to say a sincere "thanks", but there isn't a way to do that in a text that doesn't come off as weird.
- PureParadigm 7y ago
  thanks :)
- switch007 7y ago
  "Thank You"?
  - tbirrell 7y ago
    This. Expanding words and phrases out of their acronyms, abbreviations, or shorted versions lends an air of genuineness and intention to what you are saying.
    - BeetleB 7y ago
      Well, even "thank you" is an abbreviation of "I thank you." :-)
  - alberth 7y ago
    Even better, “thank you {name}.”
- jolmg 7y ago
  > something that means what you said is sincere Ideally, everything one says should be sincere, so your idea sounds weird to me. I think I understand you want more options in the communication medium of text since we can't have body language and voice tone here. Personally, I just try to be consistent with my expressions. If my "Thanks." is always used in situations where I'm "sincere" or "deeply appreciative" or otherwise, then that's what it means from me. There are people that express themselves with absurd amounts of exclamation points and all sorts of hearts and blushing emojis, and I understand that they haven't gone absolutely crazy for me because of that. I just keep tabs in the different expressions different people have for the same things. The meanings of expressions are determined by those who use them.
k__ 7y ago
Is there a reason why programming languages use semicolons instead of dots as terminators?
- randiantech 7y ago
  I guess because benefits of 'dot notation' vastly overpass the ones of eol-with-dot.
- muricula 7y ago
  I always figured its position on the querty keyboard had something to do with it, but would love to know the actual history.
- drivers99 7y ago
  A lot of programming languages are descendants of ALGOL [1], where the ; is the separator, not a terminator (you don't have to use it on the last statement of a block of code). Pascal (being based on algol) is the same, and the final "end." statement of the program, which is the main program, has a period/full stop. See end of this sample: [2] A begin / end block is one statement so they end like so "end;" unless it's the last one in a procedure, in which case you don't need the semi-colon. C was similar, except they made ; a terminator instead of separator, but you don't have to put it at the end of being/end blocks. C just uses { } to make it clear. But then, in C++ I always forget to put ; at the end of a class definition. I get why it's there, but it looks more like a function definition to me which doesn't need a semicolon at the end. Many languages are also from C or at least the Algol family tree (but usually C), like C++, Java, Javascript, etc. More about ALGOL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL [1] Algol sample: http://sandbox.mc.edu/~bennet/cs404/doc/primes_alg.html http://sandbox.mc.edu/~bennet/cs404/doc/primes_alg.html [2] Pascal sample: http://courses.washington.edu/css448/zander/Code/array.p http://courses.washington.edu/css448/zander/Code/array.p
- reallydude 7y ago
  some languages (eg Erlang) do use dots as terminators. Dots are harder to see and verify. Imagine: A = something+"some string.".
- 7y ago
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
> The semicolon was born in Venice in 1494 Again! Ten years ago I met my (now) wife in Venezia (Venice), and since then I've become really interested in Venezia's history, inventions, etc. It's incredible how many ideas, inventions, trends, important people are inextricably linked with Venezia between the 14th and 17th century. It was never a huge city, but it has been deeply influential, in a way similar to today's concept of "alpha city" [0], but not just limited to economic importance. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city
anbop 7y ago
The author's description of the various typefaces and their semicolons is just exquisite. What a fucking writer.

45 points by Osiris30 7y ago

Interesting that the semicolon was born out of a need for a longer pause in spoken language, rather than as a means to connect two independent clauses as is taught today

goatlover 7y ago
Or as an unnecessary end of statement character to clutter up your code with.
- outworlder 7y ago
  > Or as an unnecessary end of statement character to clutter up your code with. To the benefit of compiler writers, in detriment of everyone else.
  - reificator 7y ago
    I've come in to fix bugs caused by ASI many a time. Having an explicit character to denote the end of a statement is much more valuable than people pretend. And don't get me started on meaningful whitespace vs brackets.
    - outworlder 7y ago
      > Having an explicit character to denote the end of a statement is much more valuable than people pretend. No, I'm not talking about automatic semicolon insertion. I'm talking about _ not having semicolons at all _. Many languages are like that – in fact, almost all languages which are not descendants of the C branch.
      - reificator 7y ago
        I think you quoted the wrong part of the message there, but I understand. Still, without a line terminator you either have to use newlines, which sometimes will help make cleaner code and sometimes will make a mess of temporary variables and such. Or you have ambiguity, which is why I bring up the the anecdotes about fixing ASI errors.
  - goatlover 7y ago
    Which makes it interesting that the Go creators, being heavily into C before, decided to ditch the end of statement semicolon.
bitwize 7y ago
Virtually all punctuation marks started as prosody hints, indicating intonation and pauses, suggesting how the text is to be read aloud. In fact you can argue that this is still the case: it was only later that we invented grammatical structure rules for them, and even those are applied only in certain contexts like professional writing. In casual writing, we tend fall back to using punctuation as prosody markers, for example: "Worst. Episode. Ever."
- jessriedel 7y ago
  Yes, reading a transcript without punctuation can give one a visceral sense of what drove its introduction.
lighthazard 7y ago
If there are two independent clauses, why not keep it 2 sentences? I personally use it to connect two separate thoughts that have a related subject.
- NobodyNada 7y ago
  "Independent clause" doesn't mean "unrelated thought," it's grammar terminology for a phrase that makes sense as a simple sentence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_clause
gdcohen 7y ago
Also that the article talked about the colon as having a longer pause than a semicolon (different to how it is used today).
markdown 7y ago
Did they not have the ellipsis back then?

ggg3 7y ago

anyone knows what "ufq" means in the latin page?

tom_ 7y ago
It's "usq", with a long S: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s - so it's an abbrevation for "usque".
jfengel 7y ago
It's "usq"; that's a medial S (ſ) rather than an f. It's short for "usque", meaning "up to" or "as far as". A rough translation of the sentence would be "The experience teaches you as far as it can; the author can't say beyond what they've been given to speak."
kleinerhexer 7y ago
“usque” (see <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dusque> http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...), because the second letter is a long s (“ſ”), not an “f”, and “q;” is the abbreviation for “que” as mentioned in the text: That semicolonish mark at the end of the fourth line from the bottom isn’t a semicolon, it’s an abbreviation for que, Latin for “and.”

acqq 7y ago

The typography on the scanned 1494 page is beautiful. I also remember seeing the ancient Roman grave stones with the very nice letters, but I admire how they developed the types for printing.

benbreen 7y ago
Aldus Manutius and his workshop assistants had an incredible eye for design. Not just the typography but the layouts as well tend to be more elegant (to my eyes) than what we have today. One of my favorite examples: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hypnerotomachia_...

bobthechef 7y ago

„‚cultural rebirth’ after the gloomy Middle Ages” Not the point of the article, but that slanderous characterization of the Middle Ages for some reason refuses to die even centuries following the fanaticism of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. It is well understood that the Middle Ages were a remarkeable period, culturally speaking. The Renaissance frankly grew out of the Middle Ages.

jackschultz 7y ago

If we're speaking about punctuation, there really needs to be another mark in between a period and exclamation point, something that means what you said is sincere. Responding to a text by saying "Thanks." or "Thanks!" is so different. If I was talking to someone and they gave a compliment, I'd want to say a sincere "thanks", but there isn't a way to do that in a text that doesn't come off as weird.

PureParadigm 7y ago
thanks :)
switch007 7y ago
"Thank You"?
- tbirrell 7y ago
  This. Expanding words and phrases out of their acronyms, abbreviations, or shorted versions lends an air of genuineness and intention to what you are saying.
  - BeetleB 7y ago
    Well, even "thank you" is an abbreviation of "I thank you." :-)
- alberth 7y ago
  Even better, “thank you {name}.”
jolmg 7y ago
> something that means what you said is sincere Ideally, everything one says should be sincere, so your idea sounds weird to me. I think I understand you want more options in the communication medium of text since we can't have body language and voice tone here. Personally, I just try to be consistent with my expressions. If my "Thanks." is always used in situations where I'm "sincere" or "deeply appreciative" or otherwise, then that's what it means from me. There are people that express themselves with absurd amounts of exclamation points and all sorts of hearts and blushing emojis, and I understand that they haven't gone absolutely crazy for me because of that. I just keep tabs in the different expressions different people have for the same things. The meanings of expressions are determined by those who use them.

k__ 7y ago

Is there a reason why programming languages use semicolons instead of dots as terminators?

randiantech 7y ago
I guess because benefits of 'dot notation' vastly overpass the ones of eol-with-dot.
muricula 7y ago
I always figured its position on the querty keyboard had something to do with it, but would love to know the actual history.
drivers99 7y ago
A lot of programming languages are descendants of ALGOL [1], where the ; is the separator, not a terminator (you don't have to use it on the last statement of a block of code). Pascal (being based on algol) is the same, and the final "end." statement of the program, which is the main program, has a period/full stop. See end of this sample: [2] A begin / end block is one statement so they end like so "end;" unless it's the last one in a procedure, in which case you don't need the semi-colon. C was similar, except they made ; a terminator instead of separator, but you don't have to put it at the end of being/end blocks. C just uses { } to make it clear. But then, in C++ I always forget to put ; at the end of a class definition. I get why it's there, but it looks more like a function definition to me which doesn't need a semicolon at the end. Many languages are also from C or at least the Algol family tree (but usually C), like C++, Java, Javascript, etc. More about ALGOL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL [1] Algol sample: http://sandbox.mc.edu/~bennet/cs404/doc/primes_alg.html http://sandbox.mc.edu/~bennet/cs404/doc/primes_alg.html [2] Pascal sample: http://courses.washington.edu/css448/zander/Code/array.p http://courses.washington.edu/css448/zander/Code/array.p
reallydude 7y ago
some languages (eg Erlang) do use dots as terminators. Dots are harder to see and verify. Imagine: A = something+"some string.".
7y ago

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

> The semicolon was born in Venice in 1494 Again! Ten years ago I met my (now) wife in Venezia (Venice), and since then I've become really interested in Venezia's history, inventions, etc. It's incredible how many ideas, inventions, trends, important people are inextricably linked with Venezia between the 14th and 17th century. It was never a huge city, but it has been deeply influential, in a way similar to today's concept of "alpha city" [0], but not just limited to economic importance. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

anbop 7y ago

The author's description of the various typefaces and their semicolons is just exquisite. What a fucking writer.