Turn of the Screw, Henry James
The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Thérèse Raquin, Émile Zola
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Notes from the Underground, Dostoyevsky

Penguin teamed up with AIDS awareness (RED) and a team of designers. Each designer used a quote from the book in the cover design. If you like words and typography, you’ll like them. My favourites are Anna Karenina and The Secret Agent. Notes from the Underground is also pretty intense. Yours?

Hat tip to Sarah Turner

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So it’s not surprising to read some of the cranky indictments of this piece of punctuation by American writers like Vonnegut and Stein, and they weren’t the first. Americans have been complaining about semicolons since 1848, when Edgar Allen Poe went on record against them, followed by grammarian Justin Brenan in 1865. The introduction of the telegraph played a role in the semicolon’s decline in the late 1800s, when punctuation was charged at the same price as words and short, punchy lines were made necessary in business and journalism. Over the past century, the semicolon continued to suffer losses at the hands of changing narrative style.

Then along came the Internet, Lynn Truss (Eats, Shoots & Leaves), and in 2008, following the mark’s appearance on a New York subway sign, the Semicolon Appreciation Society. Punctuation is free on the Internet, and lovers of the semicolon have come out of the woodwork.

My fondness for the semicolon isn’t nostalgic. I like its subtlety, and there’s room in modern society for that. I like that it offers flowing transitions between linked thoughts; it’s a thoughtful pause rather than an abrupt stop. If the period is Zeus’s lightening bolt, the semicolon is Athena’s owl.

I’ll agree that the semicolon is a love-it-or-hate-it proposition, fueled in part by fear and in part by preference, but I won’t say they’re dispensable in business writing. If you want to use them, follow these simple rules:

Use it properly. It’s only a secret handshake if you don’t learn how to use it. The semicolon might be misused frequently, but it’s not difficult to learn. The semicolon is no more complicated than the comma; it’s only a slightly longer pause that needs a sentence on either side.

Use it sparingly. Like all beautiful things, the semicolon can overwhelm if used to excess. Use it with restraint to protect its natural charm. Its subtle, reflective quality might not be called for every day in business writing, but I could easily find a home for the semicolon in places like mission statements and white papers. Here’s plain-talking stock market guru Warren Buffet:

Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars; I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

Predicting rain doesn’t count; building arks does.

Final words

Fear and loathing for the semicolon is a matter of fashion, not clear expression. The current bad boys of American letters might be more Bauhaus than Baroque, but style is fickle and opinion on usage liable to turn on a dime. Here’s Bill Bryson on the matter: “Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines.”

With shorter sentences on either side, the modern semicolon is less ponderous than it once was; it’s more like a sly wink before carrying on. It’s the rolling New York stop to the period’s abrupt halt, and that makes it perfectly poised for a revival. With a resurgence of devotion from New York to Paris, the past couple of years have proven that.

Mark my words: in the next few years, the semicolon will rally. It might even become the new period. Learn how to use it and you’ll be ahead of the curve. Warren Buffett does.

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Laboratory Service Agreement

This agreement made as of the 19th day of August, 2009

Between Healthy Pathways Hospital (hereinafter referred to as Healthy Pathways) and Testing Services Laboratory (herein after referred to as TSL).

WHEREAS Healthy Pathways is desirous to retain and appoint TSL to perform the tests of X, Y, Z (which is more particularly described in attached Schedule A) on the “PROJECT” namely, YYY.

The PROJECT shall commence on September 1, 2009 and complete on December 31, 2009. Both parties agree that in event of delay of the PROJECT is necessary, the said delay shall not be exceeding sixty (60) calendar days.

Healthy Pathways shall be responsible for the measurements of vitamins. Both parties agree that TLS shall deliver all the samples for vitamin analysis to Healthy Pathways. Upon receipt of the said samples from TLS, Healthy Pathways shall forward the results to TLS within five (5) working days.

Healthy Pathways hereby covenants and agrees to pay TLS the service fees as follows:

(a) The setup fee for the assay of ZZZ, in the amount of FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($4,500.00) within thirty (30) days after the execution of this agreement.

(b) Healthy Pathways shall make quarterly payment to TLS within thirty (30) calendar days upon receipt of invoice from TLS, for the measurement of ZZZ in the amount of NINETEEN DOLLARS ($19.00) per study subject after completing visit 1.

Quarterly payment shall be defined as December 1, 2009; March 1, 2010; June 1; 2010; September 1, 2010 and December 1, 2010. With respect to services performed for the period from December 2009 to December 2010, and in the event of delay of the PROJECT, TLS whall issue a reconciliation invoice to Healthy Pathways within seven (7) calendar days after completion of the PROJECT, and Healthy Pathways shall make payment to TLS within thirty (30) calendar days.

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1. Semicolons are too vague, too wishy washy. All other marks are assertive and clear in how they order and clarify ideas. The semicolon, used as a soft break is more subtle, more intimate. In Semicolon Slut Dorinne Jenette writes

The semicolon is the seal, still warm, of Eros on written language. It signifies union by a grammatical invitation to intimacy; the semicolon is the shared blush of a successful seduction. As with all seductions, the relationships between clauses joined by semicolons are ambiguous; this is not the punctuation of hierarchy, but of nuance.

Okay, who can resist that? And here’s a gorgeous excerpt from Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited:

“’I have been here before,’ I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastian more than twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were white with fool’s parsley and meadowsweet and the air heavy with all the scents of summer; it was a day of peculiar splendour such as our climate affords once or twice a year, when leaf and flower and bird and sun-lit stone and shadow seem all to proclaim the glory of god; and though I had been there so often, in so many moods, it was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest.”

It’s hard to imagine this passage punctuated with any other mark. Periods would be too abrupt and em dashes too perky. The semicolons give the sentence the soft dreaminess that makes it so magical.

But don’t be seduced. This kind of effect is NOT suited to business writing. Business writers are impatient and purposeful. They’re not reading for pleasure or entertainment—that’s what fiction or poetry is for. Rather, they need you to give them information so they can use it. Most business messages are clear and simple, and writers often feel a strong need to puff them up. Resist!—keep things simple, clear and plain.

2. Semicolons are old fashioned. They make me think of English manors, of lords smoking pipes and wearing smoking jackets for fun. Who wants such stodginess in their writing? Who wants to do business with such bores? Semicolon users long for the good old days, when live was gentler, slower, happier and sepia toned. This is a fantasy. Life was never better, maybe different.

3. Semicolons are not conversational. Who talks with semicolons? Maybe this point reveals my preference for American style writing, which Ian Jack of The Guardian says, “comes closer to the way people speak than British writing.” And in Pause Celebre Trevor Butterworth says that semicolon appears much more commonly in British journalism than in American. Butterworth says American prefer plainness and clarity, and believes that language should do hold up a mirror to the world. He attributes this tendency to generations brought up on the philosophy of Strunk and White and quotes Ben Yagoda saying Struck and White’s “implicit and sometimes explicit goal is a transparent prose, where the writing exists solely  to serve the meaning, and no trace of the author—no mannerisms, no voice, no individual style—should remain.”

Even without the semicolon, personality leaves its mark. With too much personality and too many semicolons, the reader gets distracted from the message. And in business writing, it’s all about the message.

3. People use them to show off. Using semicolons correctly is a bit like giving a secret handshake. If I come across one used correctly, I always tip my hat to the writer—they’re part of the same club as me. But this is snobbery, and the only benefit of being a snob is being able to elevate yourself at someone else’s expense. Good for you if you know how to use them, better if you choose not to. Kurt Vonnegut says it better than I can:

“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. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

(See more Kurt Vonnegut quotes.)

4. Hardly anyone uses them correctly. I read a lot of writing and only 10% of writers it right. (Okay, I made that statistic up, but it feels right.) Beware of Microsoft’s grammar checker—it will direct you to use semicolons in all kinds of embarrassing ways. When you use a semicolon, for your own credibility, use it correctly. If you’re not sure you’re using it correctly, avoid it.

5. They can always be avoided. It’s always gratuitous, never necessary. There is always a way to work around it with either a period, a conjunction or an em dash. The only time you ever need it is when you use it to separate items in a list when any one of the list items contains internal punctuation, such as commas. Even then, you can use a bulleted list and open punctuation.

Final words

“No semicolons. Semicolons indicate relationships that only idiots need defined by punctuation. Besides, they are ugly.”—Richard Hugo

“Let me be plain: the semi-colon is ugly, ugly as a tick on a dog’s belly. I pinch them out of my prose.”—Donald Barthelme

“They are more powerful more imposing more pretentious than a comma but they are a comma all the same. They really have within them deeply within them fundamentally within them the comma nature.”—Gertrude Stein

“I use it. I’ve no feelings about it—it’s just there. People actually get worked up about that kind of shite, do they? I don’t f***ing believe it. They should get a f***ing life or a proper job. They’ve got too much time on their hands, to think about nonsense.”—Irvine Welsh

How about you–love it? Hate it? Or maybe you’re normal and couldn’t care less.

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Examples of what I saw at the follow-up session, and how these questions affected their revisions:

An email to a consultant asking a series of questions about a technical process. The first draft was a casual, rambling stream of consciousness, in which the writer asked a question, then adds a couple more that come to mind while he is writing. The fix: revise the opening of the message to explain you have 3 questions about the ABC process, number the questions clearly, and then update the subject line (maybe “Three questions about ABC”) to let the reader know what to expect. The reader then can easily embed the answers into the original message. It takes only a few minutes for the writer to revise, and saves the reader time and frustration.

An email to a supplier about coordinating an event. The email contains three small questions, and confirms another piece of information. Instead of one email to the reader containing everything, write four separate emails. Why? If you separate the different questions, requests and information into separate emails, the reader can respond quickly where possible. If you don’t have ready answers to every question in a multi-issue email, it’s easy to sit on it until you have everything you need. Better to answer what you can quickly. It’s also easier to file and retrieve information that is clearly labeled and not buried in an email with a useless subject line, like “Information” or “Follow up.”

A technical report recommending a change of software to manage a vital business process. The original document is well organized with all the key information a decision maker would need in the Executive Summary. The only problem is it’s very technical and studded with acronyms. The decision makers are the Board Members, who are unfamiliar with your jargon. The solution: assume your readers are ignorant, but not stupid. Avoid using technical language they might not understand, especially acronyms. Using acronyms might save you a few keystrokes and buy you credibility with your colleagues, but they frustrate readers who aren’t familiar with them. The solution: use the acronyms in your draft, then use the Find/Replace function in MS Word to spell them out. Even better, instead of an acronym, use a descriptive term, like the Agreement, or the Enterprise System.

A letter to a lawyer describing your analysis of a problem and the next steps you will take. This writer (a charming guy) had abandoned his earlier legalese style (yay!) but had rebounded to extremely spare prose, thinking the opposite of a legalese style is one that was condensed to the point where it felt dehydrated. The solution: relax, use a conversational style and tell the reader a story—what you did, what you found, and what you have done as a result. Unpack it, expand it, be conversational. The letter is a record, part of a file, and needs to tell its chapter of the story clearly.

Documentation of a change to proprietary software. The changes were listed on the page in separate paragraphs. What was missing was any context—the document needed a title and an introduction, so a reader who picks it up now or in the future knows why and when the changes were made. It also would help to number the changes themselves so they could be scanned quickly and referenced easily.

What impressed me about the day was how different each of the documents I reviewed was from each other. The revisions were different too. What was the same was the thinking process and questions that helped my learners see ways to improve their writing.

Take a look at something you wrote recently. Now put yourself in the place of your reader. Consider for a moment what their prior knowledge is, why they need to read your message, what they will do with it, and how you can best present it to make their job easier. What changes would you make?

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ONE: Use a semicolon to join two independent clauses without a conjunction, or a joining word. Used in this way, the semicolon stresses the closeness in meaning between the two sentences. It’s a softer, more subtle, break than a comma.

• Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember. –Oscar Levant
• I never voted for anyone; I always voted against. W.C. Fields
• To say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism; had we never sinned, we should have had no conscience. –Thomas Carlyle

TWO: Use a semicolon between two independent clauses joined with a conjunctive adverb (such as however, moreover, nevertheless) or a transitional expression such as in fact, for example, namely). Put the comma before the conjunction or transtional expression and a comma after:

• It is forbidden to kill; therefore, all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. Voltaire
• This project appears to be overwhelming; nevertheless, it can be done.
• Genius consists in a carefully trained, highly polished ability; a thoughtfully educated, unbiased good taste; and a willingness to engage in, and a persistence to do hard work.
• The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. –Bertrand Russell

THREE: Use a semicolon to separate items in a series, but only if any one of those items contains internal punctuation, such as commas. The semicolon in this function creates a hierarchy of separation:

• First prize was given to Jane Smervitz, Peoria, Illinois; second prize to Sam Frimpson, Duluth, Minnesota; third prize to Amber Ambleton, Oxnard, California.
• There were other factors too: the deadly tedium of small-town life, where any change was a relief; the nature of current Protestant theology, rooted in Fundamentalism and hot with bigotry; and, not least, a native American moralistic blood lust that is half historical determinism, and half Freud. –Robert Coughlan
• The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive: instead of endeavouring to amuse mankind with the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas; instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame by captivating the imagination. –Sir Joshua Reynolds

NOTE: The semicolon is never required. In the sentences that illustrate the first two rules above, a period would work as well. It won’t be as subtle, but it will be correct. In the third rule, try using a bulleted list with open punctuation.

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This is a long list of sample personals, but you try editing it down. Tough to do! See if you can pick up the book—it’s so worth the $4.50 I paid at Indigo. In the meantime, enjoy:

They call me Naughty Lola. Run-of-the-mill beardy physicist (M, 46). Box no. 4023.

I’d like to dedicate this advert to my mother (difficult cow, 65) who is responsible for me still being single at 36. Man. 36. Single. Held at home by years of subtle emotional abuse and at least 19 fake heart-attacks.

Love is strange – wait ‘till you see my feet. F, 34, wide-fitting Scholl’s. Box no. 5973.

Bald, short, fat and ugly male, 53, seeks short-sighted woman with tremendous sexual appetite. Box no. 9612.

Slut in the kitchen, chef in the bedroom. Woman with mixed priorities (37) seeks man who can toss a good salad. Box no. 7421.

I intend to spend the summer stewing over failed relationships. You can join me if you like, but know now that you’ll never live up to Sandra, Jackie, Dawn, Helen, Karen or Peter. M, 37. Bitter, bi-curious, Bebington. Box no. 4762.

This ad may not be the best lonely heart in the world, nor its author the best-smelling. That’s all I have to say. Man, 37. Box no. 7654.

Tonight, female LRB readers to 90, I am the hunter and you are my quarry. 117-year-old male Norfolk Viagara bootlegger finally in the mood for a bit of young totty. Which realistically could be any one of you with working hip joints and a minimum 20% lung capacity. Hopeful right through the Complan and Horlicks main course at box no. 3112.

These ads try hard to be funny. Not me, I’m a natural. Juggling, monkey-faced idiot (M,36). Box no. 5312.

Either I’m desperately unattractive, or you are all lesbians. Bald, pasty, man (61) with nervous tick and unclassifiable skin complaint believes it to be the latter but holds out hope for dominant (yet straight) fems at box no. 1075.

Get out of my space. And quit touching. Otherwise friendly F, 42 (publicity director), wants to get to know you. Box no. 4213 (please include full CV, medical records, five recent bank statements, photo and proof or signature).

Tired of feeling patronised by the ads in this column? Then I’m not the woman for you, little man. Today you may be benighted and insignificant, tomorrow you will be more so. Now off you go. Box no. 2912.

Your age is immaterial, your looks irrelevant. Your bank balance, on the other hand – let’s not joke about with that. Grabbing F (28). Box no. 3652.

I’ve divorced better men than you. And worn more expensive shoes than these. So don’t think placing this ad is the biggest come-down I’ve ever had to make. Sensitive F, 34. Box no. 6322.

Shy, ugly man, fond of extended periods of self-pity, middle-aged, flatulent and overweight, seeks the impossible. Box no. 8623.

Last time I had this much fun, I was on forty tablets a day. It’s all downhill from here, so reply to edgy woman, 36, before the good times come to an abrupt halt and the prescriptions finally dry up. Box no. 2596.

Take the last train to Clarksville and I’ll meet you at the station. Unless the 10.15 to Watney has been delayed. In which case I’ll get the bus – meet me at Morrisons, by the front entrance. If you can’t find your way there, get a taxi and I’ll give you the fare when I arrive, but make sure you take some change with you. If you don’t have any change, take a trumpet so that you can busk for some. Woman, 38, burdened by the need to make contingency plans, seeks well-ordered man to 45. Or woman to 50. Or anyone to 60. Write to box no. 3485. If you can’t find stamps, place an ad here and I’ll get back to you. If the office is closed, email it. If you can’t write, send a taped voice message. Etc., etc.

Five things I can’t live without: the smell of lavender in my garden; eagerly awaited summers; the films of David Lean; my subscription to LRB; my alone time between the hours of 4:40 p.m. and midnight – if you speak during that time I must kill you. Edgy publicist (F, 35) requires a large berth and mucho sedation three out of every four weeks. Box no. 5298.

Narcissistic man, 32. If you’re better-looking than me (and I doubt it), why not write? Box no. 6511.

Slip your hand into two top corners of the sheet. With one hand inside each of the top two corners, fold the sheet (right sides together). Slip each of the top corners into one of the bottom corners. Lay sheet on bed or table. Arrange and fold the corners neatly. Turn in selvages enough to make four straight sides. Fold in half and half again. (All four corners will be stacked together, and sheet will be in a long strip.) Then fold the long strip in half, then in half (or thirds, depending on the size of the sheet) again to make a square. Sheet should be compact, neat square. Smooth and place on shelf. After that, dinner; then I may consider foreplay. You can call me Brigadier. M, 62. Likes things just so. Box no.7441.

Seismic geometry is number forty-three in my list of vices. Name one other and I’ll marry you. Pleading, needy, yet resolutely square M (38) WLMT any female who isn’t my mother. Box no. 7553.

Know your thermocouple accuracy table, then love me like the fool you are. Geo-sex daddy of the rhodium-refining world (M, 62) seeks practically anyone. Anyone at all. I mean it. Please. Anyone. Box no. 7809.

Like the ad above, but better-educated and well-read. Also larger bosoms. Man, 38, Watford. Box no. 2712.

I once came within an ace of making my own toothpaste. Man, 36, seeks woman with knowledge of fluoride compounds/tantric love-making. Box no. 5987.

Your stars for today: a pretty Cancerian (35) will cook you a lovely meal, caress your hair softly, then squeeze every damn penny from your adulterous bank account before slashing the tires of your Beamer. Let that start as a warning. Now then, risotto? Box no. 7394.

Box no. 0408. I missed my period. Box no. 7546.

A girlfriend isn’t a girlfriend unless she makes my mother cry with grief every time she visits. For two years now, she’s sat, contented, in front of the TV with not a care in the world. That’s where you come in. Professional M, 38, seeks heartless common slut with no small knowledge of sheltered-housing application procedures. Basingstoke. Box no. 7442.

Put me anywhere but next to him. Or her. And I haven’t said a word to them since 1987. Divorced woman, 58. The single most difficult relative to sit at weddings. Give it your best shot, but for Christ’s sake straighten your tie first, at box no. 7535.

67-year-old disaffiliated flaneur picking my toothless way through the urban sprawl, self-destructive, sliding towards pathos, jacked up on Viagara and on the look-out for a contortionist who plays the trumpet. Box no. 2179.

Poet, M, 32. My career demands you break my heart. It also demands you buy all the drinks and have lots of strange sex with me. I’ll give you an acknowledgement in my next volume, so it’s not an entirely unrewarding relationship. Box no. 1873.

My ideal woman is a man. Sorry, mother. Box no. 6221.

This is the first time in my life I’ve appeared in any font other than Courier New. That’s because my best work is still in my head, as are my years of financial stability, my buff physique, the respect of my peers, and my ability to trim sea bass. What were you expecting – Saul Bellow? Man, 34. Takes what he can get, as will you. Box no. 1763.

Some chances are once is a lifetime. Not this one – I’ve been in the last 12 issues. Either I strike gold this time or I become a lesbian. Man, 43. Box 8504.

Employed in publishing? Me too. Stay the hell away. Man on the inside seeks woman on the outside who likes milling around hospitals guessing the illnesses of out-patients. 30-35. Leeds. Box no. 3287.

To some, I am a world of temptation. To others, I’m just another cross-dressing pharmacist. M, 41. Box no. 3661.

146 is not only my IQ but also my waist size in centimetres. Lecturer in advanced maths and Mensa bore, 51. Bit of a porker but willing to low-carb for at least a fortnight for the right woman (pastry chef and trigonometry fetishist to 50). Box no. 1380.

Tell me your kidney-stone experiences – I’ll set them to music and we’ll make us a West End fortune! Unemployable choreographer and amateur harpist (M, 62) seeks recovering alcoholic with feeble mind. Own tap shoes an advantage. Box no. 7353.

Had an accident at work that wasn’t your fault? My god I love you. Junior lawyer (M, 62) seeks winnable case/easy sex. Box no. 0856.

Not all female librarians are gay and called Susan. I, however, am and would like to meet non-librarian gay women to 35 with names such as Polly, Kate or Demeter. Chichester. Box no. 5208.

I use this column principally as a sounding board for my radical philosophical theories. This time, however, I’d like some sexual intercourse. Radical philosopher and occasional lust monkey. M, 41. Box no. 4088.

Call for papers: “London Review of Books personal ads: an exaggeration or a rejection of the dominant cultural norm?” Send proposal to gay, anorexic, flamenco-dancing M, 36, baby-blue eyes, blond hair, and pesto recipes to die for. Box no. 1369.

Stroganoff. Boysenberry. Frangipani. Words with their origins in people’s names. If your name has produced its own entry in the OED then I’ll make love to you. If it hasn’t, I probably will anyway, but I’ll only want you for your body. Man of too few distractions, 32. Box no. 2576.

Your place or your other place? Woman, 32, needful of the finer things in life seeks stinking-rich bloke, 80 to100. Must be willing to fibrillate his ventricles when he becomes tiresome or bankrupt or both. Also interesting thirty-somethings for illicit and immoral affair to be conducted concurrently with the above. Box no. 1597.

Ladies: naturally apologetic man, 42, predisposed to accepting the blame. Whatever it was, it was my fault. Sorry. Sound like heaven? Box no. 5233.

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McDonald’s Fries the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers

Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Space Craft

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

Real Estate Executive Sold on City Market

Pecan Scab Disease Causing Nuts to Fall Off

Deer and Turkey Hunt for Disabled People

They work because English has so many words that function as both nouns and verbs. When you strip away unnecessary words, such as when you are writing a headline, you can expose this ambiguity. Each headline can be read in two ways. Read an interesting article about this phenomenon in the New York Times by Language Log linguist Ben Zimmer.

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• Melanie Mohan Senior Coordinator, Registrar’s Office, The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario www.icao.on.ca
  
• Sonia Gluppe, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Project Coordinator/Team Lead
• Burl Levine, freelance writer/editor/tutor, levines.inklings@sympatico.ca

Answers

Here are the sentences with punctuation in all the proper places:

1. Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember. –Oscar Levant
2. I never voted for anyone; I always voted against. W.C. Fields
3. It is forbidden to kill; therefore, all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. Voltaire
4. To say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism; had we never sinned, we should have had no conscience. –Thomas Carlyle
5. Genius consists in a carefully trained, highly polished ability; a thoughtfully educated, unbiased good taste; and a willingness to engage in, and a persistence to do hard work.
6. First prize was given to Jane Smervitz, Peoria, Illinois; second prize to Sam Frimpson, Duluth, Minnesota; third prize to Amber Ambleton, Oxnard, California.
7. This project appears to be overwhelming; nevertheless, it can be done.
8. The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. –Bertrand Russell
9. There were other factors too: the deadly tedium of small-town life, where any change was a relief; the nature of current Protestant theology, rooted in Fundamentalism and hot with bigotry; and, not least, a native American moralistic blood lust that is half historical determinism, and half Freud. –Robert Coughlan
10. The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive: instead of endeavouring to amuse mankind with the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas; instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame by captivating the imagination. –Sir Joshua Reynolds

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Can’t say the test is accurate—first time I took it my answers linked me to Architype Van Doesburg.

I think it’s awful. According to the site, this font expresses “strength of form and firmness of purpose.” It’s a “brutally fair” typeface, in which every letter occupies equal space. Apparently I would “wrestle anyone who claims C is less important than D.” Hmm, I am a bit strong, I admit that, but brutal? Would I wrestle someone over a typeface? Certainly not this one.

Try it yourself and let me know what type you are: www.pentagram.com/what-type-are-you

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