Definition:
A mark of punctuation ( ; ) used to connect independent clauses and show a closer relationship than a period does. See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "At a comma stop a little. . . . At a semicolon somewhat more."
(Richard Hodges, The English Primrose, 1644) - "The printed semicolon is 500 years old, dating from the first printings of Greek and Roman classics by the pioneering Italian typesetter Also Manucci in the 1490s. The mark first appears in printed English in the late 1600s."
(Ned Halley, Dictionary of Modern English Grammar, Wordsworth, 2005) - "Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember."
(Oscar Levant) - "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."
(Peter Drucker) - "Let me be plain: the semi-colon is ugly, ugly as a tick on a dog's belly. I pinch them out of my prose."
(Donald Barthelme) - "With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I have a great respect for the semi-colon; it's a useful little chap."
(Abraham Lincoln) - "Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."
(Mark Twain) - "Volleyball games resume on the sand flat; someone fires up the sauna; in the long dusk, at eleven o'clock, half a dozen beach fires people the shore."
(Annie Dillard, "Mirages") - "Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath."
(Lewis Thomas, "Notes on Punctuation")
Pronunciation: SEM-ee-kol-un
Alternate Spellings: semi-colon
