# Some people like semicolons; I don't. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 29, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688 "2008-02-29T23:27:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![totoismomo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/59ef9b/32.png) [@totoismomo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/totoismomo)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/1 "2008-02-29T23:27:48Z")
I have never seen the need for the semicolon. It seems to me that using a period in place of a semicolon never takes away from the clarity of the passage and has the added advantage of increasing readability. Yes, I know it is meant to bind together two independent clauses in a way a period supposedly doesn’t, but can you really force that kind of connection with punctuation? Using a semicolon strikes me as very similar to using an exclamation mark to force a sentence to have a meaning that shouldn’t need to be forced. Maybe my aversion to the semicolon is due to the fact that I came of age when the semicolon was falling out of fashion, so they appear alien and distracting to me. Or maybe I just don’t do read or write enough to pick up on its subtleties. Whatever the case may be, I’m still open to giving the semicolon a second chance, provided someone can give some examples of semicolon usage that obviously enhance clarity or readability. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/2 "2008-03-01T00:03:49Z")
Some people like to post smart-ass responses to grammar OPs using the exact pet peeve of the OP to be funny; luckily, I am above such nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/3 "2008-03-01T00:36:09Z")
Three sorts of people habitually use semicolons: pretentious writers, who feel it makes their work appear more intellectual; typists who are intoxicated, sleep-deprived, or simply dull-witted, who consistently miss the period key on their keyboards; and I forget the third kind. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/4 "2008-03-01T01:15:00Z")
I dunno. I like the things, but no more than I like commas, colons, or anything else. I don’t worry too much about strict grammatical rules, and use them when they seem right. A stronger break than a comma, and a weaker one than a full stop/period. I think there’s a workaday place for the semicolon that has nothig to do with the way they are used by pretentious wankers. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/5 "2008-03-01T01:19:40Z")
I never used to use semicolons, because I didn’t know where they should go. I also think I probably never wrote anything that required one anyway. But since learning where they’re supposed to be placed, I have started to recognise those situations more and add them where I am sure they ought to be. However, I have recently been reading some books by Naomi Novik, and she uses semicolons more often than anybody I have ever seen - usually five or six per paragraph - and it got very distracting, very quickly. I wonder if I should’ve used a semicolon anywhere in this post. Perhaps instead of the dashes (which out to have been em-dashes and not hyphens (or minus signs), but I’ve never seen the need for two kinds of dash). ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/6 "2008-03-01T01:22:30Z")
Myself … I dislike ellipses. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/7 "2008-03-01T01:33:49Z")
I used to “float,” which is to say that the school didn’t have a room for me so I taught different classes in different rooms. I was in an English room one day and the teacher had posters all around with the usual English stuff. I noticed one: comper. Huh? It’s another name for a semi-colon, com(ma)per(iod). I can’t find “comper” on line for some reason. I thought that was a good descripton of a semicolon, though. It seems to tell you to slow AND stop (but not completely) somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/8 "2008-03-01T01:34:51Z")
> [@](#): > > A stronger break than a comma, and a weaker one than a full stop/period. Yes! In fact we need even more granularity than that. How about the _Indefinite Period_ for something that doesn’t require a period but needs more than a semicolon. It can be made from a dash and a comma. Then we need the _Seguecolon_ for those times when we need less of a pause than a semicolon calls for but more than a comma. That would be composed of a tilde and a comma. I expect royalties. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/9 "2008-03-01T01:52:02Z")
I suspect your aversion is an Iowa thing; we just wouldn’t understand. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![totoismomo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/59ef9b/32.png) [@totoismomo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/totoismomo)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/10 "2008-03-01T02:44:39Z")
That’s right, **WordMan** , we Iowa-folk dun take kindly to ambiguous punctuation. 😉 And I know your comment was in jest, but I feel obligated to point out the University of Iowa is home to the prestigious graduate Writer’s Workshop which has produced many Pulitzer Prize winners. So we’re a pretty literate bunch, I like to think. Or at least those of us in and around Iowa City. ---
**Author:** ![totoismomo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/59ef9b/32.png) [@totoismomo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/totoismomo)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/11 "2008-03-01T02:56:33Z")
And **Patty O’Furniture** points out something important. It’s a bit of a slippery-slope, isn’t it? If we allow the semicolon, why stop there? Why not quantify the amount of connection with a “connectedness parameter” as a subscript: A weak connection would be “;[SUB]0.1[/SUB]” and a stronger connection would be “;[SUB]0.8[/SUB]”. Now that’s clarity! ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/12 "2008-03-01T03:06:23Z")
I love semicolons. ; ; ; Mmmm … semicolons … ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Use’em; love 'em. ---
**Author:** ![NightRabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbce88/32.png) [@NightRabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NightRabbit)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/13 "2008-03-01T03:17:06Z")
I think semicolons have more elegance than a full stop- its more like a little jump. As someone highly concerned with the poetry of a sentence, sometimes a semicolor can make a nice difference in flow. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/14 "2008-03-01T04:06:11Z")
I love semicolons. Heck, sometimes I use two of them in place of a full colon. ---
**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/15 "2008-03-01T04:28:33Z")
I used to dislike them, but then I saw some clever uses of them and realized that I probably disliked them because I didn’t really know how to use them. Now that I know, I find myself using them more and more. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/16 "2008-03-01T06:03:17Z")
My pet peeve- can you believe it (of course you can; you all are pretty imaginative)- might be overuse of parenthical, that is, superflous, statements. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/17 "2008-03-01T10:51:32Z")
[QUOTE=totoismomo] That’s right, **WordMan** , we Iowa-folk dun take kindly to ambiguous punctuation. 😉 And I know your comment was in jest, but I feel obligated to point out the University of Iowa is home to the prestigious graduate Writer’s Workshop which has produced many Pulitzer Prize winners. So we’re a pretty literate bunch, I like to think. Or at least those of us in and around Iowa City. [/QUOTE] Oh sure - absolutely. I have a friend who attended there, and another friend from Grinnell who is a reasonably big deal at the NY Times. Iowans can write - but apparently with very few not-quite-full pauses along the way! ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/18 "2008-03-01T15:26:27Z")
[QUOTE=NightRabbit] I think semicolons have more elegance than a full stop- its more like a little jump. As someone highly concerned with the poetry of a sentence, sometimes a semicolor can make a nice difference in flow. [/QUOTE] Exactly. I always think about how a sentence would sound if read aloud, and a semicolon often improves the flow. twicks, who leaves big honking footprints in everything she writes and edits in the form of semicolons ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/19 "2008-03-01T16:13:47Z")
You shouldn’t love or hate them. Semicolons have a job to do, and can do it well. But they need to be used judiciously and not as a crutch. I personally don’t use them a lot, but have no problem using one when it’s called for. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688/20 "2008-03-01T19:31:17Z")
As a graduate student working on an English MA, I write several literary criticism papers every semester. The semi-colon is only one of the valuable punctuation tools I use for clarity of meaning. There are definite rules of punctuation in scholarly writing and I follow them faithfully. I also get As (not A’s) on nearly all of my papers. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-people-like-semicolons-i-dont/439688.md?page=2)