You’re not alone in your predicament about when to use the semicolon. Unless you are at least adequately familiar with English grammar and usage, you’d really be always thrown into doubt when you get the urge to use semicolons, which the late novelist Kurt Vonnegut had denigrated as “transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”
Not everybody is so dismissive of the semicolon, though. American writer Ben Dolnick waxes ecstatic in an essay in
The New York Times about the semicolon usage by the English writer William James: “For the past year or two I’ve had on my nightstand a fat Library of America collection of his writing, and it took me a while to realize that one of the things I was loving about it — one of the things that made me feel as if I was sitting beside a particularly intelligent, humane and excitable friend on a long trip in a horse-drawn carriage — was his use of semicolons… Semicolons, along with exclamation points and dashes and whole sackfuls of commas, are, for him, vital tools in keeping what he called the ‘stream of thought’ from appearing to the reader as a wild torrent.” (
“Semicolons: A Love Story” by Ben Dolnick,
The New York Times, July 2, 2012 issue)
So what is it really that makes different writers feel so differently about the semicolon?
I don’t think there’s a quick and easy answer, for the truth is that in English, the use of the semicolon together with one or all of the other punctuation marks is an art form, something that you learn not only by formula or intellection but also by gut feel. The semicolon’s utility definitely goes beyond its dictionary definition as a punctuation mark “used chiefly in a coordinating function between major sentence elements (as independent clauses of a compound sentence)”—an abstraction that isn’t very helpful in practical terms on how to use this grammatical device.
As to what semicolons do in sentences, recall that they perform the following usual grammatical tasks:
1. Serve as a punctuation mark to sort out or provide “soft conceptual boundaries” between a serial list of items introduced by a colon and that individually require or use commas. That’s a tough concept to grasp, of course, but it can be more easily explained by the use of the multiple semicolons in the following examples:
(a)
Serial list of places: “The six nominees for the leadership awards were the municipal mayors of Calauan, Laguna; Bangued, Abra; Tolosa, Leyte; Cainta, Rizal; Irosin, Sorsogon; and Cabanglasan, Bukidnon.
(That’s five semicolons in a row peppering a sentence!)(b)
Serial list of designations: “The following have been designated as members of the interscholastic academic task force: Dr. Abigail Santos, PhD, University of the Philippines, representative for colleges and universities; Dr. Mario Reyes, PhD, Philippine Science High School, representative for high schools; Mr. Adonis de la Cruz, MBA, representative for business schools; and Ms. Evangeline Cheng, MA, representative for primary schools.
(That’s three semicolons working with a colon and 10 commas to clearly sort out each task force member by name, qualification, and designations.)2. Serve as a punctuation mark to separate closely related independent clauses, implying a relationship between grammatically coequal ideas without actually specifying their relationship. That’s likewise a tough abstract concept that’s best explained by the use of a stand-alone semicolon in the following examples:
(a) “She loves designer pizza; so do I.”
(b) “She doesn’t make friends easily; she has been betrayed by so many close acquaintances to entertain the idea ever again.”
3. Serve as a punctuation mark between a clause and another clause introduced by a conjunctive adverb like “nevertheless,” “however,” and “at any rate,” as in the following examples:
(a) “She really didn’t like the idea of going out of town during the Holy Week
; nevertheless, at the urging of her boyfriend, she relented and will go with him to Pampanga to watch the mock reenactments of the Christ’s crucifixion.”
(b) “I should say here that we were in a 16 foot canoe, with a limited draft (distance to the water at the middle of the boat). At first, we made good time
; however, about halfway across, the wind blew up enough to create whitecaps on the waves.” ((From
“A Close Brush with Death,” Brad’s Teacher Writing, Pearson Adult Learning Center)
4. Serve as a punctuation mark between two complex or lengthy independent clauses even when they are linked by a coordinating conjunction. This is a rare and rather complicated use of the semicolon, but in the hands of a competent writer, it can clarify and streamline the flow of a composition, as can be seen in the following example:
“Coach Auriemma realized that his next recruiting class contained two superb guards, a fine post player, and a power forward
; but as of the end of the spring recruiting season, he was still pushing to discover better first-year players for the interior positions.” (From CCC Foundation's
Guide to Grammar and Writing)
These are not all, though. The semicolon can have so many unexpected, not-so-well-mapped out uses in exposition that it will probably take me several days and so many chunks of expository examples to explain them all. Indeed, the proper use of the semicolon in combination with the other punctuation marks— the comma, colon, dash, parenthesis, or period— is what makes sentences and expositions in English eminently readable. Together, they work to clarify meaning and set off boundaries between structural units of the sentence. Written English would be so clunky and insufferably confusing without the benefit of these punctuation devices.
RELATED READINGS:A unified approach to the proper use of punctuation in English - Part IA unified approach to the proper use of punctuation in English – Part IIA unified approach to the proper use of punctuation in English – Part III
