The most under-appreciated punctuation mark: The semicolon

Posted On Nov 06, 2008 at 8:04 pm
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Semicolon Every since I was a young kid in grade-school, I have always had a preference of complex sentence structures instead of the more predominant "lets use a period as often as we can" ideology. In my mind, a period is far too sharp of a punctuation for the separation of many clauses that, while technically stand independently, are much more pleasant to read when they are punctuated as being relative to each other.

Most people are taught to rely on commas and conjunctions for this kind of separation; I find these to be almost as boring and redundant when overused as periods. For most of my literate life, I fully embraced conjunctions but always found myself using them in nearly every sentence; there had to be a better way! So, what other options are there if you don't want to sharply end every sentence with a period and you're over-using conjunctions? The answer to that is simple: The semicolon!

From my memories of English class, the semicolon was primarily taught as a way of separating lists; not so much for its other usage of joining separate clauses that share a relationship. As a result, grammar Nazis are very quick to point out the supposed over-use of semicolons. I have recently started to wonder, why is the semicolon so hated on? I personally find it to be very powerful and useful, yet it's condemned from being embraced. We need a semicolon revolution!

"I have grown fond of semicolons in recent years. . . . It is almost always a greater pleasure to come across a semicolon than a period. The period tells you that that is that; if you didn't get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer." - Lewis Thomas

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