hilarious as it goes on. Shaw explains that, having worked out his own system for colons and semicolons, he has checked it against the Bible, and seen that the Bible almost got it right. With such authority behind him, he is offended by Lawrence’s cavalier attitude. “I save up the colon jealously for certain effects that no other stop produces,” he explains. “As you have no rules, and sometimes throw colons about with an unhinged mind, here are some rules for you.”
Shaw is quite famous for his idiosyncratic punctuation. His semicolons, in particular, were his way of making his texts firmly actor-proof – in fact, when Ralph Richardson tried to insert a few dramatic puffs and pants in his opening lines as Bluntschli in a 1931 production of Arms and the Man (1894), Shaw stopped him at once and told him to forget the naturalism and observe the punctuation instead. “This is all very well, Richardson,” Shaw said (according to Richardson’s account), “and it might do for Chekhov, but itdoesn’t do for me. Your gasps are upsetting my stops and my semicolons, and you’ve got to stick to them.” Richardson said Shaw spoke the truth about this: miss any of Shaw’s stops and “the tune won’t come off”. Look at any Shaw text and you will find both colons and semicolons in over-abundance, with deliberate spacing to draw attention to them, too, as if they are genuine musical notation.
Captain Bluntschli. I am very glad to see you ; but you must leave this house at once. My husband has just returned with my future son-in-law ; and they know nothing. If they did, the consequences would be terrible. You are a foreigner : you do not feel our national animosities as we do.
Arms and the Man , Act II
To adopt George Bernard Shaw’s use of the semicolon today would obviously be an act of insanity. But in the letter to T. E. Lawrence he is sound on the colon. When two statements are “placed baldly in dramatic apposition”, he said, use a colon. Thus, “Luruns could not speak: he was drunk.” Shaw explains to Lawrence that when the second statement reaffirms, explains or illustrates the first, you use a colon; also when you desire an abrupt“pull-up’: ‘Luruns was congenitally literary: that is, a liar.’
You will see [writes Shaw] that your colons before buts and the like are contra-indicated in my scheme, and leave you without anything in reserve for the dramatic occasions mentioned above. You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life.
So the particular strengths of the colon are beginning to become clear. A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence, and in its simplest usage it rather theatrically announces what is to come. Like a well-trained magician’s assistant, it pauses slightly to give you time to get a bit worried, and then efficiently whisks away the cloth and reveals the trick complete.
In each of the following examples, incidentally, can’t you hear a delighted, satisfied “Yes!” where the colon comes?
This much is clear, Watson: it was the baying of an enormous hound.
(This much is clear, Watson – yes! it was the baying of an enormous hound.)
Tom has only one rule in life: never eat anything bigger than your head.
( Tom had only one rule in life – yes! never eat anything bigger than your head .)
I pulled out all the stops with Kerry-Anne: I used a semicolon.
( I pulled out all the stops with Kerry-Anne – yes! I used a semicolon. )
But the “annunciatory” colon is only one variety. As well as the “Yes!” type colon, there is the “Ah” type, when the colon reminds us there is probably more to the initial statement than has met the eye:
I loved Opal Fruits as a child: no one else did.
(I loved Opal Fruits – ah, but nobody else did. )
You can do it: and you will do it.
( You can do it – ah, and you will do it. )
A classic use of the colon is as a kind fulcrum between two antithetical
Shaw is quite famous for his idiosyncratic punctuation. His semicolons, in particular, were his way of making his texts firmly actor-proof – in fact, when Ralph Richardson tried to insert a few dramatic puffs and pants in his opening lines as Bluntschli in a 1931 production of Arms and the Man (1894), Shaw stopped him at once and told him to forget the naturalism and observe the punctuation instead. “This is all very well, Richardson,” Shaw said (according to Richardson’s account), “and it might do for Chekhov, but itdoesn’t do for me. Your gasps are upsetting my stops and my semicolons, and you’ve got to stick to them.” Richardson said Shaw spoke the truth about this: miss any of Shaw’s stops and “the tune won’t come off”. Look at any Shaw text and you will find both colons and semicolons in over-abundance, with deliberate spacing to draw attention to them, too, as if they are genuine musical notation.
Captain Bluntschli. I am very glad to see you ; but you must leave this house at once. My husband has just returned with my future son-in-law ; and they know nothing. If they did, the consequences would be terrible. You are a foreigner : you do not feel our national animosities as we do.
Arms and the Man , Act II
To adopt George Bernard Shaw’s use of the semicolon today would obviously be an act of insanity. But in the letter to T. E. Lawrence he is sound on the colon. When two statements are “placed baldly in dramatic apposition”, he said, use a colon. Thus, “Luruns could not speak: he was drunk.” Shaw explains to Lawrence that when the second statement reaffirms, explains or illustrates the first, you use a colon; also when you desire an abrupt“pull-up’: ‘Luruns was congenitally literary: that is, a liar.’
You will see [writes Shaw] that your colons before buts and the like are contra-indicated in my scheme, and leave you without anything in reserve for the dramatic occasions mentioned above. You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life.
So the particular strengths of the colon are beginning to become clear. A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence, and in its simplest usage it rather theatrically announces what is to come. Like a well-trained magician’s assistant, it pauses slightly to give you time to get a bit worried, and then efficiently whisks away the cloth and reveals the trick complete.
In each of the following examples, incidentally, can’t you hear a delighted, satisfied “Yes!” where the colon comes?
This much is clear, Watson: it was the baying of an enormous hound.
(This much is clear, Watson – yes! it was the baying of an enormous hound.)
Tom has only one rule in life: never eat anything bigger than your head.
( Tom had only one rule in life – yes! never eat anything bigger than your head .)
I pulled out all the stops with Kerry-Anne: I used a semicolon.
( I pulled out all the stops with Kerry-Anne – yes! I used a semicolon. )
But the “annunciatory” colon is only one variety. As well as the “Yes!” type colon, there is the “Ah” type, when the colon reminds us there is probably more to the initial statement than has met the eye:
I loved Opal Fruits as a child: no one else did.
(I loved Opal Fruits – ah, but nobody else did. )
You can do it: and you will do it.
( You can do it – ah, and you will do it. )
A classic use of the colon is as a kind fulcrum between two antithetical
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