Punctuation

[Allen165]

A sentence from an article published in the Columbia Law Review:

"The initial focus of this Article is on one such form, namely, 'Supremacy Clause textualism'; that is, recent textualist claims about the Supremacy Clause of Article VI."

Could anyone explain to me why there's a semicolon before "that is"? I would've used a comma because "that is, recent textualist claims about Supremacy Clause of Article VI." is a dependent clause. I suppose the Columbia Law Review might have its own usage guide that accepts such use of the semicolon.

Thanks a lot.

 

[mayita1usa]

... I suppose the Columbia Law Review might have its own usage guide that accepts such use of the semicolon.

Either that, or they just don't have a good proofreader! ;-)

"The initial focus of this Article is on one such form, namely, 'Supremacy Clause textualism'; that is, recent textualist claims about the Supremacy Clause of Article VI."

To answer your question, no, I have no explanation for the semi-colon either. The transitional phrase "that is" introduces the appositive (not dependent clause - there's no verb) "recent textualist claims.... Article VI." Normally, as you said, appositives are set off by commas (or dashes).

But to be honest, I believe a sentence that requires this many commas is probably just a badly written sentence! In fact, when I tried to rewrite this one, I discovered that I couldn't even tell for sure what it was trying to say... :shock: