Semicolons, Nuance, and Contract Law

Everyone has a punctuation bugaboo; mine is the semicolon*. So I liked this post at Adams Drafting:

Excerpt: “Perhaps because they’re aware that I’ve had occasion to consider punctuation, some readers contacted me about the February 18 New York Times article about use of a semicolon in a New York City Transit subway placard….

And more generally, semicolons are creatures of nuance—less than a period, more than a comma. A contract isn’t the place for nuance.

But fans of semicolons shouldn’t despair: even with the limited use I put them to, my contracts still end up containing quite a few of them.” (Full post, here.)

*Though Victor Borge’s “Phonetic Punctuation” routine could make anyone laugh about punctuation.

(From Portland, Oregon: And then there is the Trimet PGE Park eastbound MAX station, where you can sit on semicolons and other punctuation. Whenever I alight from the train, it’s always right at the semicolon; it’s a mystery.]