Dreaded since most people never learned to use it correctly when young and, as a result, aren't comfortable with it today.

It's actually fairly simple. If you have two separate clauses which could stand alone on their own grammatically but you want to link them to make one point, the semi-colon is your best friend as in:

She couldn't leave Rex; her finances were in shambles.

Both halves could be separate sentences or you could exchange the semi-colon for the word "because" but in either case the writer's meaning is altered ever so slightly.

Another use in which semi-colons come in handy is to separate items in a list some of which already contain commas as in:

For every fishing trip they had to bring tackle boxes; bait; bandages, ointments, and other first aid supplies; and large quantities of beer.


I bring this all up to ask the question How do you all feel about semi-colons? Do you avoid them? The reason this came up has to do with a line from a limerick recently submitted to the OEDILF on the word "aerobatics" which read:

"Gape at stalls; thrill to dives death-defying!"

Grammatically the use here of the semi-colon is right on the money and yet I generally prefer sidestepping its use when convenient. I like:

"Gape at stalls! Thrill to dives death-defying!"

since the extra exclamation point seems to add excitement similar to the way old movie trailers used to back in the day:

"SEE the torment of the damned! SEE the battle between Good and Evil! SEE scantily-clad young women who really should know better!"


Any semi-colonial thoughts?

That was my limerick. I think you've critiqued it more than enough, thank you.

BTW, you're mistaken is saying "submitted to the OEDILF." It was for this board.

Gape at stalls! Thrill to dives death-defying

I prefer the semi-colons. I find that most people (including myself) use exclamation marks way too much.

Many years ago I remember reading a short poem of which the first line was something like:

"See how the semi-colon is strutting with pride"

And the last line was something like:

"You must stop and count two"

Sadly I can't remember the rest of the poem but do remember the advice to pause deliberately at a semi-colon.

And, let me say also, I find it a very useful punctuation mark and feel that its advantages over its rivals (such as the comma and the dash) are often overlooked.

I'm a semi-colon person. I tend to use them fairly liberally in my writing, and am often tempted to add them to others' writing that I am checking for factual or grammatical correctness. I feel that the semi-colon has a useful part to play, and that, used correctly, it can help avoid ambiguity.

Alas, many people, as CJ has said, don't know how to use it correctly. That has, however, no effect on my own writing; I don't avoid semi-colons -- rather, I use them all the more.

I found your poem on Google.

quote:

---

See, how Semicolon is strutting with pride;

Into two or more parts he'll a sentence divide.

As “John's a good scholar; but George is a better:

“One wrote a fair copy; the other a letter.”

Without this gay ensign we little could do;

And when he appears we must pause & count TWO.

---

Excellent!

I tried to google it myself but thought that the first sentence was "see how THE semicolon is strutting with pride"

It's probably the first time I've seen this rhyme for half a century.

"One wrote a fair copy; the other a letter."

Is this correct?


It had always been my understanding that clauses separated by a semi-colon needed to be able to stand on their own. "One wrote a fair copy" certainly does but "the other a letter" is, on its own, just a sentence fragment. To my mind, a comma is what is needed here (though God knows I've been wrong before).

Any thoughts?