RaveNew York Journal of BooksSemicolon is a charming book. Cecelia Watson takes on \'the most feared punctuation mark on earth\' ... with a charm and enthusiasm that grammarians like Lynn Truss and Mary Norris reserve for the comma ... Watson, however, is less a grammarian than a historian of grammar, and Semicolon is less a writing guide than an exploration of a punctuational oddity’s evolution. Watson’s history is unexpectedly engaging ... She suggests that \'we can peel away the justification that ‘rules are really in language’ and free ourselves to ask instead, ‘What good rules might be, even if they aren’t strictly necessary or sufficient?\' It’s an argument for deep knowledge and style awareness, moving beyond strictures to something educated, intuitive, and graceful.
