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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.]

Full post as published by Oregon Legal Research on February 26, 2008 (boomark / email).