The Colon: Stop the Abuse

Fact: Every nine seconds, a colon gets abused. The latest perpetrator of this senseless crime? None other than Justin Bieber.

It's official: Justin Bieber has jumped the shark.

How do I know the teen sensation's career has peaked?

It's not simply the fact he's going to publish his memoirs – at the tender age of 16 – but specifically that the title of said autobiography sports not one but two colons.

That's right. October will see the release of Justin Bieber: First Step 2 Forever: My Story.

Not since the release of Star Wars: Episode One: The Phantom Menace in 1999 has the colon – the punctuation mark of choice for those who like to think of themselves as arty and cool – been so overused.

You may have noticed we're living in the age of the colon.

It's everywhere, from movie posters (Mission: Impossible III) to album sleeves (Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan) to book jackets (Going Rogue: An American Life) to the television listings (Law and Order: Criminal Intent).

Apart from the colon's grammatical function, its judicious use was originally meant to convey solemnity; it gave a director, musician, author, or TV producer credibility, a certain artistic heft.

Over the past couple decades, the colon has become an affectation. After years of overuse, it has become such a cliché , it now reeks of pretense.

The double-dotted mark wasn't always favoured by the trendy set, it's true.

Back in the 1970s, brackets served a similar purpose in song titles, one of the first examples being "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." This tradition continued in the 1980s with "(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight" and a few years later with "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You."

If these tunes were penned today, I bet colons would take the place of parentheses.

Those with long memories will remember how heavy-metallers favoured the umlaut for a number of years, and today's texting culture has surely renewed interest in the exclamation mark.

But we have reached the saturation point with the colon. The only way to go now is parody.

I'm noticing more and more examples. Maybe you are, too.

I should have foreseen that Tina Fey, the premier comedic talent of her generation, would be one of the first to take note of how the colon has run amok.

In a 2008 story arc on 30 Rock, the critically acclaimed small-screen comedy, Tracy Jordan announced the title for a pornographic video game he had created: "Goregasm colon The Legend of Dong-Slayer." By actually enunciating the colon, the show highlighted the silliness of its overuse. And Tracy is exactly the calibre of talent who would believe using a colon is clever and original.

That same year saw a subtle big-screen jab at the popular punctuation.

In the Judd Apatow comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Kristen Bell plays a popular TV performer.

The show-within-the-movie that she works on? It's called Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime.

So not only is the name of the program a tautology, but it's one pointlessly separated by a colon – reminiscent of the endless CSI and Law and Order iterations.

When Phantom Menace came out, I was working at the National Post as an arts writer. The title was so vexing, our copy editors gathered together to hold a mini-conference in the newsroom.

They eventually decided a dash should be used for variety, so the title became Star Wars: Episode One – The Phantom Menace in our copy from then on.

To our in-house grammar experts, double colons seemed like overkill. I guess they felt they should rescue George Lucas from embarrassment. And they hadn't even seen the movie!

Our young friend from Stratford should be so lucky.

This article originally appeared in the London Free Press.