France Worries--Whither the Semicolon?

Some are trying to destroy it. Some want to preserve it. The Guardian:

Encouragingly, a Committee for the Defence of the Semicolon appeared on the web (only to disappear some days later, which cannot be a very good sign). Articles have been written in newspapers and magazines. The topic is being earnestly discussed on the radio. It was even the subject of an April Fool's joke on a leading internet news site, which claimed, perfectly plausibly, that President Nicolas Sarkozy had just decreed that to preserve the poor point-virgule from an untimely end, it must henceforth be used at least three times a page in all official correspondence.

EntertainingIy, The Guardian asks a number of luminaries for their opinion on the piece of punctuation. (Not that his remarks are particularly offensive, but I'm sure someone will figure out why Franzen puts his foot in his mouth here.)

Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would want to get rid of the semicolon, otherwise how do you connect two thoughts that lie somewhere between an em dash and a comma? Incidentally, I'm reading Proust right now, which, even in English translation, is to my mind unimaginable without the semicolon.

Comments

[FairEconomist]

Amusedly, I think

Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would want to get rid of the semicolon, otherwise how do you connect two thoughts that lie somewhere between an em dash and a comma?

would work better with a semicolon.