Monday, April 28, 2008

Semi-colons

For some reason there is a big debate going on in the world right now about semi-colons. It's not just the usual about what to do with them but whether they should exist or not which I find faintly bizarre...they do exist! Even if someone tells me they don't exist, I will still use them.

Maybe this is because I'm a teacher and feel that it is necessary to say the same thing in three different ways to ensure that I have imparted knowledge thoroughly enough: semi-colons are there to link two sentences (or would-be sentences?) that are closely related to each other. So I might want to say: Semi-colons are cool. All the gangstas are using them. Well, the second statement confirms the first so that's pretty strongly related...you might as well use a semi-colon: Semi-colons are cool; all the gangstas are using them.

There's no rule about how exactly the sentences have to be related...I don't think! There are a few examples below of sentences that are linked in different ways just to give you a feel. I wouldn't say that you ever have to use a semi-colon. You would just use one having made the decision to communicate to your readers that those two sentences were related.

Some examples:

  • The goldfish came home from the vets'* today; it had been there for a week.
  • Her hairstyle is freaky; I don't think it's normal to have snakes' heads on the end of each hair.
  • The effects on the goldfish population were monumentally catastrophic; there has never been such a serious dip in the population.

The other time to use semi-colons is in a list when you need to use commas to describe the things you're listing. (This is ringing a bell...have I posted about this before?) For example: My favourite films are Finding Nemo; Jaws, the all-time classic; and Shark Tale. It just helps make it all a bit clearer. And cleariness is next to godliness in Grammar World.

I do feel like I'm missing something, bearing in mind that there's a global debate about this. Am I? Have I got it all wrong? I haven't consulted anyone/anything about it since my GCSEs 10 years ago.

*I'm assuming this was a practice run by several vets.

4 comments:


Ant said...

Great post; i found it very useful.

Can you shed some light on some mysterious and arcane knowledge though?

I'm speaking, of course about such topics as:

The difference between the use of hypens and dots... or - in my sentences.

Also, the evil of apostrophes. Or apostrophes'. Or apostrophe's. I can never tell.

Anonymous said...

fantas;tic!

tobiwan said...

or apostrophes, indeed..

Anonymous said...

Wow, thanks El that's really shed some light on the matter. I never knew what they were for before and only ever used them when microsoft word suggested it and I thought it might make me look good!!