# Whatever happened to semicolons? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 1, 2005, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327 "2005-10-01T13:25:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![galen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@galen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/1 "2005-10-01T13:25:19Z")
If you read stuff written more than a couple of decades ago, the writers made proper use of semicolons. Now you rarely see them. They have mostly been improperly replaced by commas. What is going on here? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/2 "2005-10-01T13:44:32Z")
> [@galen](#): > > If you read stuff written more than a couple of decades ago, the writers made proper use of semicolons. Now you rarely see them. They have mostly been improperly replaced by commas. > > What is going on here? What is going on here is that you do not read enough of my books, or magazines edited by me; I always make use of our friends the punctuation marks. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/3 "2005-10-01T14:09:54Z")
What about Laura Ingalls Wilder? Maybe the death of the semicolon began with her? ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/4 "2005-10-01T14:15:12Z")
I dunno. I love 'em and use them liberally (and probably inappropriately but so what). ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/5 "2005-10-01T14:41:13Z")
I was told throughout high school and some of college that the semi-colon is looked down upon as punctuation. Our teachers and our Harbrace book told us to just break up our sentences unless it just looked really good. So, some grammar snob at Oxford somewhere has decided that semi-colons are basically too old fashioned. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/6 "2005-10-01T14:44:20Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > What is going on here is that you do not read enough of my books, or magazines edited by me; I always make use of our friends the punctuation marks. Ditto. Read my Staff Reports; you’ll see some righteous semicolon usage, dude. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/7 "2005-10-01T16:18:19Z")
My wife has a semicolon; it’s what remained after her surgery. ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/8 "2005-10-01T16:34:49Z")
It seems the replies to this thread have become a game of ‘use the semicolon;’ I wholly support that venture. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/9 "2005-10-01T16:44:04Z")
I have no problem with semicolons, but they seem to be falling away from common use. Sometimes when people are told how to use them, they wind up overusing them or forgetting that there are other ways to join clauses or deal with sentence problems. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/10 "2005-10-01T17:32:55Z")
I prefer colons: they are a better fit with my syllogistic style. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/11 "2005-10-01T17:45:43Z")
I sometimes prefer the dash–and who’s to say no? Yeah, I get people criticizing my use of the semicolon in my work writing. I htink that many people, unfamiliar with its proper use, are afraid of it; fear breeds contempt, and so they tell me it’s doubleplus uncool. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/12 "2005-10-01T17:55:20Z")
They all got jobs in the programming industry. Things got really crazy in the 1970s, when C took off: You’d see colons mutilating themselves with especially sharp hyphens to modify the lower dot, and periods and commas got ten kinds of freaky before the Moral Majority put the kibosh on punctophilia. ---
**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:** [October 1, 2005, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/13 "2005-10-01T19:57:20Z")
There’s just been an underreported shortage of semicolons. The older mines are pretty much worked out, and most of the newer deposits are in places like North Korea and China, who want to keep them for their own industries. The shortage has raised the price from $1 per hundred to nearly $100, especially in some of the Eurpoean markets. Most authors can’t afford this, so are making do with commas. The bad news is that this year’s comma crop was wiped out by the Gulf hurricaines. forcing us to relay on cheap Japanese commas. These often have their tails break off. leading to confusion. typoes. and further errors. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/14 "2005-10-01T20:01:30Z")
> [@Spatial Rift 47](#): > > It seems the replies to this thread have become a game of ‘use the semicolon;’ I wholly support that venture. That looks extremely odd. I think I can conclude that even in the U.S. it’s not usual to stick the quote after the semicolon. Anyway, I use semicolons all the time and if you look in my posts around here you’ll see it. Except, seemingly, this one. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/15 "2005-10-01T20:16:31Z")
Somebody loves semicolons over at Wikipedia. > [@](#): > > The semicolon is frequently considered to be the greatest of the punctuation marks … I’d use them but really I’m an ellipsis man myself. ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/16 "2005-10-01T20:25:00Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > There’s just been an underreported shortage of semicolons. The older mines are pretty much worked out, and most of the newer deposits are in places like North Korea and China, who want to keep them for their own industries. The shortage has raised the price from $1 per hundred to nearly $100, especially in some of the Eurpoean markets. Most authors can’t afford this, so are making do with commas. > > The bad news is that this year’s comma crop was wiped out by the Gulf hurricaines. forcing us to relay on cheap Japanese commas. These often have their tails break off. leading to confusion. typoes. and further errors. Fortunately the broken commas can be doubled to serve as colons. And, after all, why settle for a semicolon when one can use a colon at the same price? There is some good news: Despite massive destruction of rainforests, there is still a glut of question marks in South America which may be used here after they are inverted. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2005, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/17 "2005-10-02T00:42:48Z")
I’m a fan of the semicolon myself. It will pop up in my serious technical writing all the time. In my as yet unpublished attempts at fiction it’s more rare, but not unheard of. There are some instances where you write two sentences such that one follows very directly from the other. Joining them via a semicolon helps preserve the flow of the writing. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2005, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/18 "2005-10-02T00:52:03Z")
Ditto; ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/19 "2005-10-02T01:23:21Z")
I use them all the time; in fact whenever I’m editing a first draft of something I’ve written, the first thing I do is make sure I haven’t used too many of them. > [@Hung Mung](#): > > I was told throughout high school and some of college that the semi-colon is looked down upon as punctuation. Our teachers and our Harbrace book told us to just break up our sentences unless it just looked really good. It’s not looked down upon. It’s often used incorrectly, so maybe that’s what your teachers were getting at. When I was a sophomore in college, I had an English professor who gave us a list of eight or ten “deadly sins,” the commission of any one of which would lower your paper’s grade by one full letter. I turned in a paper on Wilfred Owen, which came back with nothing but glowing comments and a big red **B** at the top. Aghast, I asked him why I’d gotten a B. “You have a comma splice right here,” he said, “and that’s one of the deadly sins.” So I sat down and carefully learned what a comma splice is, and then moved on to the other Deadly Sins. The grade pissed me off, but in retrospect that was the event that got me to really pay attention to stylistic matters in my writing. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2005, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327/20 "2005-10-02T16:32:45Z")
[This is quite an interesting article about the loss of the semicolon](http://eutrapelia.blogspot.com/2005/09/pause-celebre.html): > [@](#): > > Indeed, part of the semicolon’s mystique is the way that it wantonly gives itself to great writing without offering a clear rule for lesser writers to follow. This has perturbed pedants everywhere English is written, leading to the widespread conviction that the semicolon should, on principle, be avoided. In fact, one attempt to quash San Francisco’s gay marriage law last year was dismissed on the grounds that the plaintiff had used a semicolon instead of a conjunction. A conservative group had asked the court to order the city to “cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to and/or solemnising marriages of same-sex couples; to show cause before the court.” As the San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren explained, the word “or” should have been used instead of the semicolon. “I am not trying to be petty here,” he told reporters, “but it is a big deal… That semicolon is a big deal.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-semicolons/324327.md?page=2)