April 4, the Guardian: "An elegant pause - or merely a 'pretentious comma'?: For and against the semicolon: The end of the line?"

April 6, Sunday Telegraph: "Punctuation is not a political issue; or is it?"

April 25, the Guardian Weekly: "Jon Henley examines claims that the French semicolon has been rubbed out by Anglo influences"

May 2008, in Corporate Writer & Editor: "Why writers need the semicolon; The semicolon is mysterious, but it provides a much needed wink, pause and reflection."

May 12 in New York Mag: "Anarchy and Semicolons; A novel in which a punctuation mark could almost be called destiny."

June 20, in Slate: " ; ( "

June 27 in Slate: "A Punctuation Nation Speaks Out"

And finally:

August 10, Boston Globe: "Sex and the Semicolon"

Well, the semi isn't technically dead yet but there's a healthy debate going on speculating that its days are numbered. And as any B-list celebrity can attest, when people start asking whether your career is dead, it already is. So that's the angle we're going with.

The Guardian offers a rather startlingly in-depth analysis of the viability of the semicolon, including "for" and "against" arguments from notable writers. It should come as no surprise that Jonathan Franzen takes an unabashedly pro-semicolon stance.

"I love a good semicolon, but this sounds like one of those Literature is Dead! Stories that The New York Times likes to run," he says. "I've never heard from a reader confused by one of my semicolons, and I don't remember ever throwing a book aside for being semicolon-free."

The late Kurt Vonnegut, meanwhile, takes the subtle approach and compares semicolons to cross-dressing she-males: "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons," he has cautioned. "They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

Semicolon is survived by colon, parenthesis and em dash. In lieu of flowers, please send anecdotes of times you have been confused by a semicolon to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, care of Jonathan Franzen.