Oh. My. God.
You guys.
Look at this. Look at this article by MG Siegler.
Are you seeing this? Last two sentences of the first paragraph:
After all, they were getting great publicity for giving away something that was already free (GrandCentral — which is now known as Google Voice). We wondered if they wouldn’t pull the same stunt in the future. Well, it’s the future; and they are.
MG wrote that. He wrote that. Em dashes and semicolons were the very first things I ever passive-aggressively taught him. And now he just used them the way they’re supposed to be.
UPDATE: Well, technically, “and” doesn’t go after a semicolon, but I’ve already given MG a pass on beginning sentences with “and” as a stylistic quirk, so he can do it with semicolons too.
Also parentheticals. All three, in the same paragraph. Wow.
And look at this, right at the start of the next paragraph:
Again, this is actually a very nice thing they’re doing, but it’s also an ingenious way to promote what Google clearly considers to be one of its killer products: Google Voice.
Omigod he just did the same thing with a colon too eeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!
MG, you have no idea how proud I am of you; I never thought this day would come so fast. Just think, someday maybe you’ll even spot a place where my own punctuation compromises readability.
Now, all I have to make fun of about you is your Apple fanboyism and obsession with Twitter, making me just like everyone else in the world. Unless, of course, you so much as misplace the acute mark in the word “cliché” (which you have no excuse for because on your Mac it’s as simple as hitting option-E before typing the E). If you do that, I will not hesitate to waste four hours of my life ranting about it in order to get maybe two or three extra pageviews.
MG Siegler Destroys the English Language — Episode 5
Just when I thought that I’d never have to do one of these ever again.
It’s been over a year since our friend MG has committed an act of textual assault (or at least since I’ve noticed). I’d begun to think he’d been reformed, and that perhaps he’d turned over a few new leaves, as opposed to “leafs”. But now, in writing Fast Break: As Of Last Week, Many At Sprint Thought They Were Merging With T-Mobile, MG Siegler has begun to slip back into his old, dark ways — the man he once was coming back to haunt him, reclaiming his soul.
I’m talking, of course, about this atrocity of a first paragraph:
No, MG, this morning’s news doesn’t leave a lot of questions. You do, starting with your second sentence.
“T-Mobile customers want to know what it means for them?”
I’m not sure, MG, do T-Mobile customers want to know what it means for them? You’re the one writing the article, not me.
“AT&T customers want to know what it means for them?”
Or, are these rhetorical questions, MG? Are you expressing shock and disbelief at the fact that AT&T customers want to know what this merger means for them?
“Would-be iPhone buyers want to know what it means for them?”
Oh, no, I get it, MG; it’s not that at all. You just don’t know how to use a question mark.
Really, MG? A question mark? I can understand a semicolon or an em dash — they’re not usually taught in second grade or anything — but a question mark? You don’t know that it’s supposed to be used on questions that you, the writer, are asking, as opposed to simple sentences that are about questions? If you’re making a statement that “T-Mobile customers want to know what it means for them,” then shouldn’t you be using a period? Why do I have to explain this to you? Is it really that difficult to understand? Do you just like using question marks? If that’s the case, there are all sorts of ways to write a sentence which calls for a question mark at the end, so why waste the opportunity on something horribly, horribly wrong?
MG quickly recovers, using a colon properly in the final sentence of the paragraph, and continuing for the rest of the article with no readability-compromising errors. But the resurgence of his former tendencies concern and frighten me, and I recommend that we keep a close eye on him. MG is our friend, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that I hate seeing him like this.