The melancholy decline of the semicolon

I use them a lot to control the tone of what I write. Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone[1], I often need some other way to indicate a separation between two complete sentences. For example: &quot;It looks like you forgot to do X; that&#x27;s needed to do Y.&quot; Using a period could be perceived as anger, but using a comma would make that sentence a comma splice.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;fS4X1JfX6_Q?t=3m3s" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;fS4X1JfX6_Q?t=3m3s</a>

<i>&quot;The semicolon is a profound public mystery; the only punctuation mark that regularly unites readers and writers in deep-seated repugnance.&quot;</i><p>That sentence should have used a colon, not a semi-colon, IIANM.<p><i>The digital world churns; Twitter is not an arena known for reflection. Semicolons, then, are snottily elitist and shadily indirect.</i><p>The elitist snottiness is in assuming people live their lives on Twitter and the like. They don&#x27;t.<p><i>the semicolon has been usurped by ... the Dash</i><p>Well, _maybe_ some authors use more dashes than they used to (I actually doubt that, but never mind) - but a dash is not a substitute for semicolon. Their semantics are too different for that to be possible, IMHO. Take the first sentence in this paragraph: You can&#x27;t replace the dash there with a semicolon, as that would mean splitting the &quot;maybe&quot; and &quot;but&quot; clauses into separate, not-directly-related clauses; you just can&#x27;t do that.<p><i>indicating a pause</i><p>Not just a pause; a semicolon is also a semantic distancing. Two phrases separated by a comma are really an inseparable part of the same idea idea; if you separate them by a semicolon, they can each stand in their own right.

I am seeing a use of the instruments that seems quite confused.<p>The semicolon is part of the division of the expression of thought in supersets and subsets of structural affinity: comma, semicolon, period, new paragraph. (Which also means that the semicolon has a necessary role in general: whenever the structure is best defined also using that level of affinity.)<p>The dash, the colon and the brackets are instead related to the modality of relation: the colon to express dependency, the dash to provide detail, the brackets to insert a note parallel to the main flow.<p>(Note: there is also a sub-function of the semicolon to separate list items. I did not use it in the paragraph just above as I intended to exploit the &quot;nuclear&quot; aspect of comma-separated list items, but that is a rhetorical option and the semicolon would have been necessary for more complex items.)

&gt; The melancholy decline of the semicolon<p>I blame JavaScript developers. &#x2F;s

Semicolons aren&#x27;t just for high literature: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;serprex.github.io&#x2F;w&#x2F;;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;serprex.github.io&#x2F;w&#x2F;;</a><p>&gt; Semicolons are hot<p>Dash seems a poor substitute. A dash is closer to a period. Semicolons work well for when just using multiple commas would become ambiguous. Shorter sentences also solve that, but sometimes you want a run on sentence, sometimes you want to splice more context in at this very point. &amp; sometimes you just want to drop a conjunction

I had to read a lot of Heidegger, who was interesting on a macro level but interminably boring on the micro level needed to see the macro. His readability was helped by the use of very visible double dashes-- sort of an extended version of the double-comma appositive structure in a sentence-- so the structure of his writing was easier to follow.<p>I liked that much more visual que enough that I adopted it myself for a while. Over time, I recognized that when I found myself reaching for the technique it meant that I probably needed to restructure things into more discrete chunks that build sequentially. When possible, conveying complex information benefits from as simple a structure as the information can manage.

Sentence length has gone down a lot, it feels like. So really, the semicolon has not been replaced by the dash, but by the period.

Semicolons drown adventurers every day in NetHack and show no signs of decline:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nethackwiki.com&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nethackwiki.com&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;;</a>

I&#x27;m surprised they didn&#x27;t mention the controversial Vonnegut advice to never use semicolons (e.g., [1]).<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quickanddirtytips.com&#x2F;education&#x2F;grammar&#x2F;vonneguts-famous-semicolon-advice-was-taken-out-of-context" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quickanddirtytips.com&#x2F;education&#x2F;grammar&#x2F;vonnegut...</a>

Completely off topic but, after doing python for ages, recently started writing Rust and semicolon does seems useless. We are doing the indentation and new lines anyway, why not just make them as default language construct as python does.<p>(autodidact developer here, feel free to ELI5 and enlighten me)

This article does not demonstrate understanding of the semicolon; it is used incorrectly in the first sentence, for crying out loud.

My favourite use of the semicolon is in its function as a &quot;supercomma&quot;. It just makes sense.<p>E.g.<p>&quot;We were joined by three families: John, his wife, Mary, and their son, George; the Middletons; and our neighbours, Jim and Sally from next door.&quot;<p>Alas, whenever I use it, invariably someone who&#x27;s never seen it used this way will simply have a tantrum until I completely rewrite the whole thing in the most tedious way possible; it&#x27;s almost not worth using it, for this reason alone.

I’ve read some shelves in my life, and from a reader’s perspective a good read has never made me think about what punctuation the author used. This is an inside nonsense which only worries idling writers and critics.

If you’re a good enough writer to know how to property use a semicolon, you’re a good enough writer to not need to use one.

I find it amusing that programmers use semicolons more often then writers.

I enjoy using semicolons when writing, a dash is not always appropriate.<p>Bonus points if it makes me look like a pompous loner going against society.<p>Reject modernity, embrace semicolons.

It can&#x27;t be accidental that the article has multiple paragraphs where they use an em dash where a semicolon would&#x27;ve also been appropriate.

I find it interesting that I am using semicolons <i>more</i> these days because clients like my work Outlook recommend it in places I wouldn&#x27;t use it but are correct; as a result, I use it more often.

Meh. Grammar, in general, is on a steep suckiness trend.<p>For example, when was the last time you saw someone on the web actually use the correct past tense of &quot;lead (verb, transitive)&quot;?

&gt; The semicolon is an element of language that communicates stops, pauses, reflections, and cigarette breaks within a sentence. It connects loose ends with disparate ideas;<p>In this regard I think the decline of the semicolon is related to the fact that we write knowing that our message will be competing for attention in a busy inbox or feed. Our audience is the harried, harassed reader. There’s not much room for reflection or whimsy in such settings.

Sometimes the semicolon is the best tool for the job.

I tend to use it as another level of separation where needed, where comma is used for something else internally.

I wish using the word &quot;Melancholic&quot; was more of a thing, rather than the pedestrian and, in my firm belief, incorrect, &quot;Melancholy&quot;<p>I was feeling Melancholic, not melancholy. I know Oxford disagrees and fuck them too. Melancholy already is a perfectly nice noun.

I love the semicolon, as a tool to judiciously include in the toolkit, for when you want to join two sentences more emphatically. It even helps you be concise and emphatic; this sentence demonstrates how.

But wait; why not give it, another chance.

Ah, the colon. To misquote Denis Leary, never use a punctuation symbol named after part of your ass. And then the semicolon. Half-assed by name, half-assed by nature.

There are the rules, and then there is the intuitive rationale that a writer finds for using a certain grammatical form. The improved quality of writer’s writing is often premised upon these rationales. If the rationale is intuitive to the writer, it is likely that the reader’s cognitive overhead will be reduced as well. This contributes to a reader’s truly felt pleasure when they realize what they’re reading is good.

&quot;Vonnegut’s First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college. (From A Man Without a Country)&quot; - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lithub.com&#x2F;kurt-vonneguts-greatest-writing-advice&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lithub.com&#x2F;kurt-vonneguts-greatest-writing-advice&#x2F;</a>

Counterpoint: tools like Grammarly frequently recommended semicolons, so I’ve actually been using them more than ever before recently.

I might have this wrong but there was a definite use case for the semi-colon: it follows a colon in a list; can be used as a more flowing version of a bullet point list; can do so without interrupting the readers chain of thought.<p>edit: grammarly says I&#x27;m wrong and that should be a colon followed by a comma separated list. I might just be old or confused.

Twitter has rescued the semicolon for me as a way to save a character since an em-dash requires an extra space.

<p><pre><code> for (let i = 0— i &lt; 3— ++i) { console.log(&quot;no semicolons!&quot;)— }</code></pre>

Fun fact: the semicolon won&#x27;t decline soon in France (and a few other countries I think): it&#x27;s what we use instead of commas for CSV files!<p>However I never use it when writing anything, I&#x27;m not even sure what&#x27;s its usage.

I was hoping The Lonely Island would raise the semicolon&#x27;s profile: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=M94ii6MVilw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=M94ii6MVilw</a>

I think kids have had &quot;avoid run-on sentences&quot; drummed into them so hard that they&#x27;ve become very hesitant to use alternative punctuation that would lengthen sentences.

&quot;And so any student whose deployment of a semi-colon is not absolutely Mozart-esque knows that they’re going to get a C in my class&quot; - David Foster Wallace

&gt; “All they do is show you’ve been to college.” The symbol is facing the same melancholy fate as the dodo, the dinosaur, and the Soviet Union.<p>Consensus is a beautiful thing.

It&#x27;s quicker to fix a run-on sentence comma with a semicolon rather than a full stop; you don&#x27;t have to capitalise a letter.

It was to be expected; people are often unsure how to use it.

Fortunately, programmers have taken up the cause and boosted the semicolon to it&#x27;s rightful place.

And no fucks; were given.

I&#x27;ll save you a click, this is just faux-intellectual drivel.