How to improve writing (no. 90)

In The New York Times, Lauren Oyler makes a case for semicolons. I was struck by this passage:

That semicolons, unlike most other punctuation marks, are fully optional and relatively unusual lends them power; when you use one, you are doing something purposefully, by choice, at a time when motivations are vague and intentions often denied. And there are very few opportunities in life to have it both ways; semicolons are the rare instance in which you can; there is absolutely no downside.

Well, there can be. A downside, that is. I’d alter the punctuation of that last long sentence to give its first clause more weight and to join the next two more gracefully:

That semicolons, unlike most other punctuation marks, are fully optional and relatively unusual lends them power; when you use one, you are doing something purposefully, by choice, at a time when motivations are vague and intentions often denied. And there are very few opportunities in life to have it both ways. Semicolons are the rare instance in which you can, and there is absolutely no downside.

But semicolons as an instance? I want to revise a little more:

That semicolons, unlike most other punctuation marks, are fully optional and relatively unusual lends them power; when you use one, you are doing something purposefully, by choice, at a time when motivations are vague and intentions often denied. There are very few opportunities in life to have it both ways. Semicolons let you do so, and there is absolutely no downside.

Or better still:

That semicolons, unlike most other punctuation marks, are fully optional and relatively unusual lends them power; when you use one, you are doing something purposefully, by choice, at a time when motivations are vague and intentions often denied. There are very few opportunities in life to have it both ways. Semicolons let you do so, with no downside.

I’m still not sure what it means here to have it both ways, but I do know from semicolons. In a 2007 post titled How to punctuate more sentences, I wrote:

One caution: it’s easy to overuse the semicolon. As an undergraduate, I often used semicolons indiscriminately; I joined sentences together in long, unwieldy chains; my excitement about tying ideas together carried me away; as you can see in this example, the result is not reader-friendly.

Related reading
All OCA “How to improve writing” posts : All semicolon posts

[This post, which began as a way to call attention to this Times piece, has turned out to be no. 90 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]