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(Emphasis above mine.) YES.

That "she isn't" at the end adds so much voice to this line, and so effortlessly. I actually love it unpunctuated. It sounds breathless -- all run together. I can "hear" this voice. But, just as Janet suggested at the beginning of this thread, punctuation can alter the way the words impact, immensely:

A woman. Without her, man is nothing. She isn’t.
A woman without her man is nothing? She isn’t.
A woman, without her man, is nothing, she isn’t.
A woman without her man is nothing, she isn’t.
A woman without her man is nothing -- she isn’t.
A woman? Without her man? Is nothing, she isn’t.
A woman without her man! Is nothing -- she isn’t?

Oh, enjoy! That one's been in my queue for the longest time. I remember really liking the beginning. I've had a tug for The Sun Also Rises lately.

Creative! It says "I'm fine" one way, and "Save Me" the other way, with the apostrophe in "I'm" acting as a teardrop in the "Save Me" version.

I love the idea of playing with the language to create effects. I don't know how to do it, but I can appreciate it when I see it. I tend to write the straightforward tale which follows the "rules," and contain my experiments to free verse which no one ever understands. I read that passage I quoted above by Woolf, and I sigh. She makes a summer morning out of a sentence. I wish I could do it. It's like learning the piano, I guess: one has to keep practicing.

Language is not enough. It's an inadequate vehicle for what the human heart wants to express. I know I'm not the only one in this thread who has felt a story swell in her, or a poem, and goes to put it into words only to find,  in the end, that the product is inadequate. Words cannot finish what we have to say.

I hear what you're saying here, Charles. There's a lot of absolute junk out there which people claim is artistic, but it's actually just inept and self-indulgent. How do we know? It just doesn't work. It doesn't inspire, it doesn't surprise, it doesn't sizzle.

Does some writing fail? ABSOLUTELY! A lot of it does! (Which is why we have this site.) It's clumsy, pondering, filled with purple prose and sloppy semi-colons whose only achievement is to create irritation where appreciation was anticipated. If the writer cannot control his or her language, it's obvious. But that's not because the writer fails to follow the rule book. It's because the writer fails to understand what each instrument within the tool box achieves. If I fill up my manuscript with errant ellipses, these are going to stick out. The question isn't whether or not that works according to page 30 of the Chicago Manual of Style. The question is whether or not I know why I used them, and whether or not I know what my reader is going to expect out of the ellipsis. (That's when you look at the style book. Not to find out what to obey, but to find out what the ellipsis can accomplish.)

If I'm reading along and see a semi-colon, I assume what follows will be the standard. If it isn't, a sense of discomfort is created. That can be a purposeful misuse of the semi-colon -- a clash inserted into the text by the author. It's a subtle effect intended to stimulate a response. Without context, you don't actually know.

Style manuals have to be republished all the time, because the "rules" for standard writing change constantly. They adapt to the moment. You probably don't want to go rogue as a new writer. Learn the medium, because a daring use of a semi-colon is (silly as it is) going to vex a lot of people. (That makes me chuckle. But it would!) Learn the language, and then make music of it, if you have the courage. Strum the semi-colons as one strums a guitar.

If you're reading a book/manuscript and come upon a wayward semi-colon, ask what the semi-colon accomplishes. It's a musical note. That's not cultural nihilism: it's imagination.

Perhaps you should have explained yourself more "efficiently."

Inept according to whom, Javert?

I did go back and read everything you've said. It seems you're defending standard written English (fairly enough) but also (seem) to be insisting that punctuation and prepositions & such DEFINITELY SHOULD FOLLOW STANDARD RULES unless you have determined that they should not (such as your criticism of commas in Woolf.)

What I get out of this conversation is that you don't like Woolf because she uses commas correctly (in the passage Dill cited), you don't like "A woman without; her man is nothing" because it uses a semi-colon incorrectly, you don't like "hicks," you think the bulk of college students can't read, you think Twitter is stupid, you think that anyone who goes against "proper" English is stupid, and James Joyce would definitely be stupid if he used a semi-colon as showcased in "A woman without; her man is nothing," even though you concede that experimental work like that of Joyce (and Virginia Woolf) is in a whole different category from work which should follow standard written English (like school papers, newspaper articles, and novels which hope to sell.)

However, Joyce does it right, according to you, and Woolf does it wrong, and that has something to do with the fact that Virginia Woolf uses commas while James Joyce said YES. And also probably her husband took control of her writing & she just let that pass without argument, because that's what artists do. (Please pause while I roll my eyes.)

Are you talking about the passage I quoted for Dill above? That was VW. Mrs. Dalloway. Pure poetry.

Efficiency belongs to newspapers.

You seem like you've got your trusty book of laws next to you, and you can allow for some deviations, but ONLY IF THEY MAKE SENSE. Fine art often makes no sense at all, which is why it makes all the sense in the world.

I'm not knocking standard written English. I try to tuck in my prepositions like a law-abiding fellow. I don't know why. I think it's a silly archaic rule left over from the 1600s, but I still suffer spasms of shame if I leave a "to" at the end of a sentence. Even verbally. I'll tangle myself up in a simple remark trying to tuck in my preposition.

But art? It manipulates language to create jarring effects to a purpose, and that purpose isn't always obvious. Redundancy? Underlines a moment. Hammers it into the unconscious. Destroys complacency.

The standard is the thing against which many artists work. The standard can make a tale palatable to those who want the language to hide. But for some artists, the language is the adventure. They take what is standard & push against it. The ambiguity you dislike in the line Memphis defends is often what is incredible in art, and what a dull & "standard" world it would be if art was lost to the letter of the law.

Ezra Pound said, "Make it new." That means BREAK THE RULES. They did, and how. Why shouldn't any of us? Language for the artist of the early twentieth century -- the Joyces, the Hemingways, the Woolfs, the T. S. Eliots -- was a rebellion. A challenge. A revolution.

I looked up "without" as an adverb in the Oxford English Dictionary, & it is listed as archaic. Who cares, though? Archaic only means "not currently popular." As an artist, you have it within your power to make a vote on what is popular.

I propose that A woman without; her man is nothing is a line standing on its own within poetry. Whatever comes before or after the section will determine what the semicolon accomplishes.

You harp about a passage that needs deciphering, then quote a passage by James Joyce? There's a hole in the bucket, sir.

"I leant against a pillar of the verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watching and thinking."

"There was much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd, and seemed to make light of your own abstraction. It seemed to say—‘My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter.’"

A fairly popular novel, read ravenously today by barely literate college students.

Not to say I won't be hopping in there with you one of these days!

Would the lines I punctuated form a series though?

Considering:
- how common illness is
- how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings
- how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed
- what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view
- what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals
- what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness

(etc.)

I think this is the original as punctuated:

I think it would be incredible without the commas, though. The Sound & the Fury!

I looked it up & read everyone else's suggestions after I punctuated my version. Here's what I came up with:

I didn't know what to make of the Rinse the Mouth repeat, especially since only the first version is capitalized, so I made it an emphatic repetition with the dash and exclamation point? I can see now that makes my prior dash (which I inserted because the tempo changed in the list and became suddenly breathless) confusing. I use the colon at the end because everything before it seems to be leading up to the final "it becomes strange indeed" line.

Good sample!

You're down the rabbit hole, friend.

Vern, have you gone down the rabbit hole? She didn't say anything above about telling other people to remove words from their writing. She said that she is leery of advising people to auto-delete words from their manuscripts, as this often changes the intended meaning. I can't say I disagree with her.

I'd "get to it" or "get around to it," but I'm not from the East Coast. I learned to speak on the West Coast. That said, "get round to it" sounds British to me. I'd say "want a Coke?" as opposed to "want a can of Coke?", "want some beef?" rather than "want some canned beef?" -- and can-opener, not tin-opener.  I would likely only reference "canned beef" if I was speaking to someone who had no idea it was canned. If we both knew it was canned, I'd drop the "canned" and simply refer to whatever was in the can. Likewise, the beverage.

Dill, I don't know if this source is of use. I believe it costs $95 a year, but if you are ever writing North American characters extensively, it might be really helpful?

http://dare.wisc.edu/about/what-is-DARE

The subscription linked above is for an interactive website. They have it in hard copy form as well, but it's several volumes long. It might be useless, but I thought I'd point it out.