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dylancatlow OP t1_j8ouf72 wrote

Reply to comment by Bonneville865 in TIL that the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night" was the opening line to an actual novel published in 1830, but runs on for another 51 words: "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which..." by dylancatlow

The interest point about it is, that the first to use the phrase did not end the sentence where people do today. Which gives it a somewhat different meaning.

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Bonneville865 t1_j8ovady wrote

I mean, it's a semicolon, so you could fairly easily replace that with a period and have the rest of the sentence play out.

And I'm not sure what you mean by giving it a different meaning. The rest of the sentence just further describes the storminess (and darkness) of the night.

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dylancatlow OP t1_j8p5yte wrote

Semicolons aren't interchangeable with periods, otherwise we wouldn't bother with them. What they accomplish often could be easily inferred from the context anyway, but ambiguity of that sort can be jarring and unpoetic. If what followed the semicolon was not equally terrible, the sentence might have been salvageable.

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j_cruise t1_j8pe98y wrote

The reason it became famous is because the opening sentence is a famous example of purple prose.

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