Semicolon: History, Usage, and Punctuation

• The semicolon (;) is a punctuation mark used in orthography.
• It's commonly used in English to link two closely related independent clauses in a single sentence, giving them equal rank.
• Semicolons can replace commas to separate list items, especially when those items contain commas.
• The semicolon is often misunderstood and underused by English speakers.
• On QWERTY keyboards, it's located on the home row, under the right pinky finger.
• It's frequently used in programming languages as a statement separator or terminator.

History and Usage

• The semicolon was first seen in 1496 in Pietro Bembo's book "De Aetna," printed by Aldo Manuzio.
• Bartolomeo Sanvito, who was close to Manuzio's circle, also used it in 1507.
• Aldo Manuzio the Younger explained the semicolon's use in "Orthographiae ratio" (1561), highlighting its role in dividing sentences for clarity.
• Manuzio viewed the comma, semicolon, colon, and period as increasing steps in punctuation.
• Examples from "Orthographiae ratio" illustrate the semicolon's function in balancing clauses.
• Henry Denham began using the semicolon appropriately in English texts around 1580.
• By 1640, Ben Jonson described the semicolon as "somewhat a longer breath" than a comma, aiding understanding.
• In 1644, Richard Hodges described the semicolon as a pause "somewhat more" significant than a comma.
• Robert Lowth (1762) drew a parallel between punctuation marks and musical rests, with the semicolon being twice the duration of a comma.
• Lindley Murray (1798) explained that semicolons divide compound sentences into related parts, less connected than commas but more so than colons.
• Modern English places the semicolon between terminal marks and the comma, with a strength equal to the colon.

Modern Use in English

• Connects two independent clauses without a coordinating conjunction.
• Followed by a lowercase letter unless capitalization is normally required.
• Modern style guides advise no space before and one space after the mark.
• Traditionally placed outside ending quotation marks.

Specific Uses

• To separate items in a series or listing, especially with internal commas, acting as "super commas."
  • Example: "The people present were Jamie, a man from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man with no friends."
• Between closely related independent clauses that are balanced, opposed, or contradictory and lack a coordinating conjunction.
  • Example: "My wife said she would like tea; coffee would have been my choice."
• Rarely, when a comma replaces a period in a quotation that links two independent sentences.
  • Example: ""I have no use for this," he said; "you are welcome to it.""

Other Languages

• In Arabic, the semicolon (فاصلة منقوطة, fasila manqoota) is inverted and used between phrases where the first causes the second, or the second is a reason for the first.
• In Greek and Church Slavonic, the English semicolon appears as a question mark, and pausing is indicated using an interpunct.
• In French, the semicolon (point-virgule) separates two full but related sentences where neither a colon nor a comma is appropriate.

Literary Criticism

• Some writers, such as Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, and George Orwell, have avoided semicolons in their works.
• Lynne Truss noted authors who have skillfully avoided using semicolons.
• Ben Macintyre suggests that Americans view the semicolon with suspicion, unlike the comma or colon.
• Semicolon usage in British fiction decreased by 25% from 1991 to 2021.

Technical Aspects

• In Unicode, the semicolon is U+003B.
• Other semicolon-like characters exist for different scripts and purposes.
• Has varied use in computer programming, often as statement separators or terminators.
• Gannon & Horning's 1975 study favored semicolons as terminators, though the study faced criticism.
• The use of semicolons is optional in some languages like Python and Go.
• In APL, semicolons separate local variable declarations and axes when indexing multidimensional arrays.
• Marks the beginning of comments in assembly languages and LISP dialects.
• Used as a delimiter for multiple email addresses and as a list separator in Microsoft Excel.
• Can separate table elements in Lua.
• In MATLAB and GNU Octave, semicolons separate rows in vectors/matrices and suppress output display.
• HTML uses them to terminate character entity references; CSS uses them to separate style attribute declarations.
• Files-11 (RSX-11 and OpenVMS) uses semicolons to indicate a file’s version number.
• Can be used as the separator character in delimiter-separated values file formats.

Mathematical Use

• Separates expressions in sequences such as completing the square.
• May separate variables from fixed parameters in a function's argument list.
• Designates the covariant derivative in differential geometry and tensor analysis.
• Represents the composition of relations in the calculus of relations.
• May follow subfunctions or subdomains in piecewise functions.
• Serves as the "decimal point" in duodecimal numbers.

Other Uses

• Used to create emoticons indicating winking or crying.
• Symbolizes the continuation of a sentence in Project Semicolon, an anti-suicide initiative that has popularized semicolon tattoos.

Related Punctuation

• Colon (:)
• Comma (,)
• Full stop (.)