1.3. The semicolon

The semicolon is not simply an alternative to the period, colon or comma. With it a writer can signal special relationships between independent clauses, and can increase the readability of long sentences that contain several commas.

You may use a semicolon to join independent clauses if the second clause restates or sets up a contrast to the first: e.g. Insist on yourself; never imitate. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

We know through painful experience that freedom is never

voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the

oppressed. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Although a period would be acceptable in each of these examples, the semicolon emphasises how closely the two clauses fit together. A comma followed by and would be correct but misleading, because and signals additional information, not restatement or contrast. Similarly, the semicolon in the next example could be replaced with a comma and but, but the semicolon makes the contrast sharper and more immediate: e.g. The college is primarily not a place of the body, nor of the feelings, nor of the will; it is, first of all, a place of the mind. –Alexander Meiklejohn

You may use a semicolon to join two independent clauses when the second begins with or includes a conjunctive adverb (however, nevertheless, moreover, consequently, etc.): e.g. Shakespeare's plays are four hundred years old; nevertheless, they still speak to us.

Commas are optional with thus, then, and some other one-syllable conjunctive adverbs; and commas are usually omitted when therefore, instead, and a few other adverbs fall inside or at the ends of clauses: e.g. She skipped first grade; thus she is younger than her classmates.

She skipped first grade; she is therefore younger than her classmates.

I did not buy the book; I borrowed it instead.

You may use a semicolon before a conjunction to join a series of independent clauses or items that contain commas: e.g. By laughing at our faults, we can learn to acknowledge them

graciously; and we can try to overcome them in a positive, even cheerful way, not grimly and disagreeably.

if you knew grammar you were special. You had prestige, power, access to magic; you understood a mystery; you were like a nuclear physicist. -Peter Elbow

A million babies a year are born in Egypt; and Cairo, like Mexico City or Jakarta, is jammed with youngsters. -Edward Hoagland

Everything was cheap: apples, peaches, sweet potatoes and corn, ten cents a bushel; chickens, ten cents apiece; butter, six cents a pound; eggs, three cents a dozen; coffee and sugar, five cents a pound; whisky, ten cents a gallon. -Mark Twain

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Although a period could acceptably replace each semicolon in the first three examples, the semicolon lets the reader know that the information in each clause is part of a continuing series.

EXERCISE

Insert semicolon as needed in each of the following sentences.

1. A President's power over the bureaucracy depends, in part, on respect born of fear during the first term it depends, in part, of the idea that a President may run again. -George Will

2. At the arterial end of a capillary, blood pressure is greater than osmotic pressure therefore, water leaves the capillary along with oxygen and nutrients that diffuse from the capillary. -Sylvia Mader

3. Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause it is also a personal affair. -Tony Morrison

4. We cannot establish instant security we can only build it step by step. - Margaret Mead

5. To take off a uniform is usually a relief, just as it is a relief to abandon official speech sometimes it is also a sign of defiance. -Alison Lurie