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How do I know what proper uses for a semicolon (;) are? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca

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It seems to me like where a period would be too strong and I want the clause after to be considered equally at the same time or possibly as a counterbalanced thing to whatever is to the left of it

If it were to parse it purely linguistically, it seems like not quite a list of things but perhaps a relevant after thought that a comma would be too weak for and a period too strong

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[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago

You've got a good range of answers here, so I'll give some indirect advice instead. When I started making a concerted effort to improve my own writing, I found that reading more helped to consolidate my growth, especially when I was doing it mindfully (such as finding a passage of text that I liked and trying to annotate it with what I personally liked about it).

Some authors don't use semicolons at all, but if you do find a good piece of writing that has some use of semicolons, it can be useful to look at how often they use them ("good" can refer to either writing that you personally appreciate, or writing that is widely held to be high quality, such as by respected authors. Ideally stick to properly published works, because online comments, blog posts etc. are less likely to adhere to grammatical conventions (not inherently a bad thing, just makes them limited as a learning tool)).

You'll probably find that there are very few semicolons, because to use them properly means using them in moderation. If you find a text that has one semicolon on an entire page of writing, try looking over other clauses on that page and find other places where the author could have used a semicolon. Then ask yourself why these feel distinct from the place where a semicolon was used, and why the author might have chosen this particular place from a semicolon.

This comment brought to you by a chronic overuser of semicolons. All should applaud me for not using any semicolons in this comment.