Obsession and confession

2 Words Forward


Obsession

Okay, I just can't keep this in any longer. I'm utterly obsessed. My hands are shaking at the thought of being without my most recent addiction. I've ridden this wave before - in fact I've been suffering from this same addiction since I was about twelve. Don't worry — it's not a drug, although it is linked to a 7% solution of cocaine. It's my oldest literary love: Sherlock Holmes.

Above is my first Sherlock, the one that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in the guise of Dr. John Watson. The illustrator was Sidney Paget and he gave me the person who I thought was the definitive consulting detective. This is why I've always preferred Basil Rathbone; he looked more like the person Paget drew than Jeremy Brett or Robert Downey Jnr (although I'll give the former credit for great performances and the latter credit for bringing sexy back). But, twenty years after I first fell in love with the books, I've found the perfect Sherlock: Benedict Cumberbatch.

As you can see from this picture, which is only necessary if the rock you live under is well insulated and doesn't have wi-fi, this has very little in common with Sidney Paget's pictures. The disappearing hair-line has been replaced with luscious locks and the aquiline features have softened. It was as I was falling in love with this new guise of the master detective that I realised something: the words always meant more than the pictures. Sherlock Holmes is no more Paget's pictures than he is the deer-stalker he never actually wore in the books. Arthur Conan Doyle gave us a character more rich than any picture and Cumberbatch's Holmes is the blunt, egotistical and emotionally-stunted genius that I first loved so many years ago. Welcome back, Mr. Holmes.

1 Word Back


Confession

I've spent a lot of time defending the humble semi-colon (;) but I must now confess something — semi-colons are a dying breed. The reason is this: there are enough other punctuation marks to cover semi-colons, the most common of which are em dashes (—). This lovely, long hyphen is very popular and performs the same function as the semi-colon; it binds two parts of a sentence which are related but go in a different direction to each other. I don't think the point is that the semi-colon is not necessary, though, I think the point is that we're using em dashes more often. Em dashes are easier to understand because they are a single line and we're so used to seeing them and using them. I'm not saying that we should replace the semi-colon with the em dash, not at all, but we should be punctuating to our audience. The em dashes are the semi-colons of the younger audience so it makes more sense to use them in young adult stories and novels. If you're writing adult work or a nice piece of literature then the semi-colon is your man. As for me, I'll be sticking with the way I currently punctuate; I'll be using each punctuation mark as the need arises. Sorry about the fence-sitting, semi-colon, but you're both useful.