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Every good editor understands that grammar rules just as they understand the grammar rules. The proper turn of a phrase is just as important as the correct comma location if one wants to transcend the doggerel and obtain something greater.

Grammar is not a weapon but a brush, a tool that allows artists to express themselves most fully. This column series will explore aspects of the English language to help enrich future generations of readers and writers alike.

Edgar Allan Poe is the well-known dark master of every goth teenager and victim to Baltimore cooping, but few know that he was the premiere American editor, setting the standard for generations to come. His uncompromising command over the English language scared more writers than the spookiest of his tales did, but he was known more for his sharp wit than a rough temper.

He was not prone to attacking others, but crude attempts to mock his use of dashes led him to write an article in Graham’s Magazine (February 1848) on the topic.

Poe begins by establishing the importance of punctuation as a whole:

THAT punctuation is important all agree; but how few comprehend the extent of its importance! The writer who neglects punctuation, or mix-punctuates, is liable to be misunderstood — this, according to the popular idea, is the sum of the evils arising from heedlessness or ignorance. It does not seem to be known that, even where the sense is perfectly clear, a sentence may be deprived of half its force — its spirit — its point — by improper punctuation. For the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.

There is no wit or sharpness to be found in Poe’s statement. His words are an obvious declaration of fact known to even the novice of speakers. They are straight forward and to the point. That is what makes his next statement so biting:

There is no treatise on the topic — and there is no topic on which a treatise is more needed. There seems to exist a vulgar notion that the subject is one of pure conventionality, and cannot be brought within the limits of intelligible and consistent rule. And yet, if fairly looked in the face, the whole matter is so plain that its rationale may be read as we run. If not anticipated, I shall, hereafter, make an attempt at a magazine paper on ‘The Philosophy of Point.’

We all recognize the importance of grammar, but everyone wants his own version of grammar to be correct. Without a universal standard, each individual creates his own linguistic fiefdom, setting forth to wage war upon his rivals at the slightest provocation. If we claim language is relative or arbitrary, then we defend this petty tyranny and ignore language’s potential.

Poe did not compose a treatise on grammar, and there is little evidence that he intended to revolutionize the field. However, he did set out to defend one territory, that of the dash:

In the meantime let me say a word or two of the dash. Every writer for the press, who has any sense of the accurate, must have been frequently mortified and vexed at the distortion of his sentences by the printer’s now general substitution of a semi-colon, or comma, for the dash of the MS. The total or nearly total disuse of the latter point, has been brought about by the revulsion consequent upon its excessive employment about twenty years ago.

A fad or fixation has led to the prominence of semi-colons and commas, which was prompted by the exuberant abuses of the dash within the works of Lord Byron and other careless writers:

The Byronic poets were all dash. John Neal, in his earlier novels, exaggerated its use into the grossest abuse — although his very error arose from the philosophical and self-dependent spirit which has always distinguished him, and which will even yet lead him, if I am not greatly mistaken in the man, to do something for the literature of the country which the country ‘will not willingly,’ and cannot possibly, ‘et die.’

The errors of a few cannot diminish the truth of language just as a drowning cannot negate the vital importance of consuming water. The dash is a vital component to language, and losing access to it would limit most writers’ ability to express their truth thoughts. Poe explains its use:

Without entering now into the why, let me observe that the printer may always ascertain when the dash of the MS. is properly and when improperly employed, by bearing in mind that this point represents a second thought — an emendation. In using it just above I have exemplified its use. The words ‘an emendation’ are, speaking with reference to grammatical construction, put in apposition with the words ‘a second thought.’ Having written these latter words, I reflected whether it would not be possible to render their meaning more distinct by certain other words.

The dash allows for parallel thoughts, which are common in normal speech, to be represented in writing. Such parallel thoughts may be redundant, but they reveal the meaning of an author when one image or idea is not enough

Although other punctuation marks express similar ideas, such as commas denoting parenthetical statements, only the dash can truly encapsulate this feeling of two parallel thoughts. Poe makes this point by emphasizing his own use of the dash:

Now, instead of erasing the phrase ‘a second thought,’ which is of some use — which partially conveys the idea intended — which advances me a step toward my full purpose — I suffer it to remain, and merely put a dash between it and the phrase ‘an emendation.’ The dash gives the reader a choice between two, or among three or more expressions, one of which may be more forcible than another, but all of which help out the idea. It stands, in general, for these words — ‘or, to make my meaning more distinct.’ This force it has — and this force no other point can have; since all other points have well-understood uses quite different from this. Therefore, the dash cannot be dispensed with.

To attack the use of the dash is to attack language itself, and a war on usage is a war against the freedom to truly express the ideas that you wish to express. Poe defended the dash not only because its loss would have diminished his artistry but because those waging war against it were waging war against language as a whole.

It is not without humor that many later critics failed to understand Poe’s stylistic choices, because they often don’t understand the history of language. They focus on themes and images instead of punctuation and grammar, because trying to understand the mechanical principles of language is difficult. It is easy to opine about shadow monsters and paranoia than to actually comprehend the complex musicality of technique.

As the critical ear failed to recognize complexity, so too did the language deteriorate. Poe, in his foresight, recognized it, and so he set to defend the dash because if he did not then no one would have, and we all would have suffered as a consequence.