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Semicolon Compared
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The semicolon (;) has only one major use. It is used to join two
complete
sentences into a single written sentence when all of the following conditions are
met:
- (1) The two sentences are felt to be too closely related to be separated by
a full stop;
- (2) There is no connecting word which would require a comma, such as
and or but;
- (3) The special conditions requiring a colon are absent.
Here is a famous example:
- It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.
A semicolon can always, in principle, be replaced either by a full stop (yielding
two separate sentences) or by the word and (possibly preceded by a joining
comma). Thus Dickens might have written:
- It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. or
- It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.
The use of the semicolon suggests that the writer sees the two smaller
sentences as being more closely related than the average two consecutive
sentences; preferring the semicolon to and often gives a more vivid sense of the
relation between the two. But observe carefully: the semicolon must be both
preceded by a complete sentence and followed by a complete sentence. Do not
use the semicolon otherwise:
- *I don't like him; not at all.
- *In 1991 the music world was shaken by a tragic event; the death of
Freddy Mercury.
- *We've had streams of books on chaos theory; no fewer than twelve
since 1988.
- *After a long and bitter struggle; Derrida was awarded an honorary
degree by Cambridge University.
These are all wrong, since the semicolon does not separate complete sentences.
(The first and last of these should have only a bracketing comma, while the
second and third meet the requirements for a colon and should have one.) Here
are some further examples of correct use:
- Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937; the first volume of The Lord of the Rings followed in 1954.
- The Cabernet Sauvignon grape predominates in the Bordeaux region;
Pinot Noir holds sway in Burgundy; Syrah is largely confined to
the Rhone valley.
- Women's conversation is cooperative; men's is competitive.
If a suitable connecting word is used, then a joining comma is required, rather
than a semicolon:
- Women's conversation is cooperative, while men's is competitive.
A semicolon would be impossible in the last example, since the sequence after
the comma is not a complete sentence.
Note, however, that certain connecting words do require a preceding
semicolon. Chief among these are however, therefore, hence
, thus,
consequently, nevertheless and meanwhile:
- Saturn was long thought to be the only ringed planet; however, this is
now known not to be the case.
- The two warring sides have refused to withdraw from the airport;
consequently aid flights have had to be suspended.
Observe that in these examples the sequence after the semicolon does constitute
a complete sentence. And note particularly that the word however must be
separated by a semicolon (or a full stop) from a preceding complete sentence;
this is a very common mistake.
There is one special circumstance in which a semicolon may be used to
separate sequences which are not complete sentences. This occurs when a
sentence has become so long and so full of commas that the reader can hardly
be expected to follow it without some special marking. In this case, we
sometimes find semicolons used instead of commas to mark the most important
breaks in the sentence: such semicolons are effectively being used to mark
places where the reader can pause to catch his breath. Consider the following
example:
- In Somalia, where the civil war still rages, western aid workers, in spite
of frantic efforts, are unable to operate, and the people, starving,
terrified and desperate, are flooding into neighbouring Ethiopia.
This sentence is perfectly punctuated, but the number of commas is somewhat
alarming. In such a case, the comma marking the major break in the sentence
may be replaced by a semicolon:
- In Somalia, where the civil war still rages, western aid workers, in spite
of frantic efforts, are unable to operate; and the people, starving,
terrified and desperate, are flooding into neighbouring Ethiopia.
Such use of the semicolon as a kind of "super-comma" is not very
appealing, and you should do your best to avoid it. If you find one of your
sentences becoming dangerously long and full of commas, it is usually better to
start over and rewrite it, perhaps as two separate sentences:
- In Somalia, where the civil war still rages, western aid workers, in spite
of frantic efforts, are unable to operate. Meanwhile the people,
starving, terrified and desperate, are flooding into neighbouring
Ethiopia.
In any case, don't get into the habit of using a semicolon (or anything
else) merely to mark a breathing space. Your reader will be perfectly capable of
doing his own breathing, providing your sentence is well punctuated;
punctuation is an aid to understanding, not to respiration.