Decline in semicolon usage, and thank goodness, not least because people generally don't know how to use them correctly.

I try to get my non-native English-speaking colleagues to cut down on their use and to please do not use them in bullet lists.

"Too academic for our purposes!" I say.

Although a careful, considered semicolon, a literary semicolon, I can get behind.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/18/marked-decline-semicolon-use-english-books-study-suggests

“To study the cuisines of the world is to study the cultures, traditions, and habits of different civilizations. All social studies can be filtered through the study of food. It is studied by practitioners in so many different disciplines, including: the anthropologist examining ancient civilizations; the historian exploring the history of trade in the New World; the sociologist considering food in different strata of society; the politician looking into embargoes on food and import/export trade;the student of religion studying food taboos in the Bible; the philosopher looking into the applications of a specific lifestyle;and the physician comparing foods that cure and foods that kill.”
Jacques Pépin, Chez Jacques
Stewart, Tahiti & Chang, 2007

Beyond the bare reading of the text, two things pop out at me: the use of the Oxford comma n the first sentence, and the deluge of semi-colons following. Thank you to editor Julie Stillman for letting them stand.

What does this mean, for all of us?

Marked decline in semicolons in English books, study suggests

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/18/marked-decline-semicolon-use-english-books-study-suggests

I have had people go frothing at the mouth when I point out that a lot of #punctuation is "#silence #notation."

A #comma is a point of silence, it is shorter than the point of silence of a #period. #Ellipsis (...) is a fade to silence. #Emdash/dash is an abrupt silence. #Parenthesis invokes a point of silence before and after an aside, much the same length as a comma.

People forget that the written word is made to represent the spoken word, that includes silence and change of pitch.

? and !

The marketing team at my company puts periods at the end of everything—titles, section headings, any group of words even if it isn’t a sentence. I suppose it is some kind of branding or trend thing but it drives me bonkers.