As children, we've all been taught that breaking the rules, whether it be on the playground, or in the academic world (of punctuation for example), is almost sinful. By the time high school rolls around and we've begun to explore why society can be arrogant in setting a "default setting, hard-wired" (said by famous American novelist, David Foster Wallace) into our brains, us students start to question why we need to follow the rules in the first place. We've become so obsessed with the idea of "getting free of [our] natural, hard-wired default"(Wallace) that considering the original might actually be insane. And it probably is. The whole while, I've been teetering on the fine line of equilibrium and disequilibrium, containing the urge to break all the set down rules of punctuation. If great authors such as Shakespeare dare to break free of the standards and still manage to succeed from the wrath of the the punctuation police, then why can't the average commoner! Not to say that new rules should override the old, but to throw away the rules once and for all.
Punctuation, like society, can be hypocritical at times. The comma, for example, "feign [s] liberation with one hand" and "tighten [s] the leash with another" (Elizabeth Austen in "On Punctuation"). Thus Austen implies that the rules, while creating a sense of emotion and feeling of suspense, can also be applied to a critical manner, such as eliminating non-essential (or so it thinks) phrases from a sentence. Modern culture, in its constant state of motion, should adapt to a new era as it occurs. As it happens in this era, punctuation should be used "honestly and sparingly" (Lewis Thomas in "Notes on Punctuation) and only to "dwell in [the] possibility" (Emily Dickinson in "I dwell in Possibility" of furthering creativity. An avid representation of a "sparing" (Thomas) use of punctuation could be exemplified in the modern social media site, Twitter. Freelance writer, Amanda Cosco, claims that she has "seen some beautiful [tweets]" (Cosco in "How Twitter Can Make You a Better Writer") coming from a site that actively restricts punctuation. And although some may argue against Twitter, and the campaign for loosening the "dogma of the period" (Austen) due to the inevitable fact of its ability to convey crisp ideas, one must ponder on the more important works in literary history. They dare to break the "dogma", which led them to create a story which embodied a clear message without the use of punctuation. So the final question is: To conform or to be individualistic? It's all in the matter of human choice.
Punctuation, like society, can be hypocritical at times. The comma, for example, "feign [s] liberation with one hand" and "tighten [s] the leash with another" (Elizabeth Austen in "On Punctuation"). Thus Austen implies that the rules, while creating a sense of emotion and feeling of suspense, can also be applied to a critical manner, such as eliminating non-essential (or so it thinks) phrases from a sentence. Modern culture, in its constant state of motion, should adapt to a new era as it occurs. As it happens in this era, punctuation should be used "honestly and sparingly" (Lewis Thomas in "Notes on Punctuation) and only to "dwell in [the] possibility" (Emily Dickinson in "I dwell in Possibility" of furthering creativity. An avid representation of a "sparing" (Thomas) use of punctuation could be exemplified in the modern social media site, Twitter. Freelance writer, Amanda Cosco, claims that she has "seen some beautiful [tweets]" (Cosco in "How Twitter Can Make You a Better Writer") coming from a site that actively restricts punctuation. And although some may argue against Twitter, and the campaign for loosening the "dogma of the period" (Austen) due to the inevitable fact of its ability to convey crisp ideas, one must ponder on the more important works in literary history. They dare to break the "dogma", which led them to create a story which embodied a clear message without the use of punctuation. So the final question is: To conform or to be individualistic? It's all in the matter of human choice.
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| Just the photo of a man (Shakespeare) who escaped the rules... |
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