I bring the very best news.
The semicolon has died.
That half period, half comma Frankenstein of punctuation has been relieved of further misery.
We’ll now mourn for the appropriate time.
Time’s up.
Rejoice!
OK, I exaggerated a smidgeny bit. The semicolon isn’t dead.
But almost. Maybe.
That’s according to a study from the language software company Babbel. It found that semicolon use has fallen by almost half since 2000.
“Terminal decline,” The Guardian declared.
Semicolon fans say it helpfully signals a pause longer than a comma’s hesitation but shorter than a period’s full stop, usually between independent clauses.
No! The period’s stop is better. Or the comma’s pause, with a conjunction (but, and, etc.). Choose as clarity and rhythm require.
Don’t fall for the semicolon’s winking beguilements. Its hybrid stop-pause betrays a writer’s timidity and encourages complex and squishy sentences.
The Guardian said the semicolon appeared first in the work of an Italian scholar – in 1494. It probably sprang onto his page from an unsupervised romp between the then much younger comma and period.
It has earned its rest.
More About Writing
The Oxford comma goes to court
I once worked for an editor who banned semicolons from headlines, because they were almost always used incorrectly. He required a dash (not a hyphen, ahem) or, in some cases, a comma. A group of copy editors responded with a skit at a company gathering in which they performed a semicolonsocopy. It was funny at the time.
Hah! Today we’d have video of that skit.
So funny!!! Thanks for sharing.