Grammar and Editing.

The book I'm currently reading, Pandora's Star by Peter Hamiliton, uses commas where I have been taught to use semicolons. 

It's driving me absolutely batty.  Two independent clauses require a semicolon, not a comma. It makes the otherwise very well written and engaging book feel amateurish. I cannot find anything online, including on several university-level writing helps websites, that indicates it is ever ok to join two independent clauses with a comma. 

It's so consistently wrong throughout the whole book that I can almost assume that the editor did it intentionally, thinking that it's a modern change in usage or practice. I cannot fathom that a big name publisher's division such as Del Rey would have editors on staff that would allow rampant incorrect usuage. 

Here's a sentence as-is from the book:

"Even though it incorporated genetic algorithms the RI was essentially stable, it would never delvep alternative interests and goals in the middle of its operations as some large array software had done in the past, with often disastrous consequences." (pg 188, paperback edition.) 

Here's how I think the above should be punctuated:

"Even though it incorporated genetic algorithms,(comma!) the RI was essentially stable; (semicolon!) it would never delvep alternative interests and goals in the middle of its operations as some large array software had done in the past, often with (flip word order!) disastrous consequences."

A mark against this being an intentional thing is something that occurs on the very next page, where we see correct usage followed directly by incorrect usage:

"Hasty decisions were just as dangerous as hesitation; one of the main requirements of his job was to keep calm in all circumstances. (Two independend clauses and correct joining.) It was a trait he'd learned early in his first life, it just got misapplied back then."  (Oh, the humanity!)

Let me fix that for ya:

   "Hasty decisions were just as dangerous as hesitation; one of the main requirements of his job was to keep calm in all circumstances. (Leaving that alone; it's correct.) It was a trait he'd learned early in his first life. (Period, because it sets off the following thought better.) It had just been got misapplied back then."

 

I'm not a Grammar Nazi. In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves is people who constantly correct other's grammar in what I consider to be causual and colloquial situations: bantering speech, causual, non-business email, chat and instant messaging, and social media.  I do hold the published word to a much higher standard and I hold written product that is intended for the general public (i.e., not only family and friends) to a higher standard: classifed advertisements, newspaper articles, sales flyers, resumes, business email.  I think one of the great failures of our current education system seems to be the inability of many to distinguish between what is casual or colloquial usage and what is formal usage. That's unfortunate. 

Comments

[Susan G]

I hear ya, regarding the casual usage and formal usage. I really really care about proper grammar and proper spelling. And yet, I found myself arguing repeatedly to my children that they should just TRY to spell something, and that it didn't matter if it was spelled correctly if we could figure out what they were saying.