Semi-colon - Definition and Overview

A semicolon ( ; ) is a punctuation mark.

History

The semicolon was invented by an Italian (1450-1515) printer named Aldus Manutius the elder. He used it to separate words opposed in meaning and to mark off interdependent statements.

The earliest general use of the semicolon was in 1591. Shakespeare's sonnets have semicolons; Ben Jonson was the first notable English writer to systematically use the semicolon.

Uses

In English, the semicolon has two main uses:

1. It is used to join two sentences slightly more closely than they would be joined if separated by a full stop (or period). It often replaces a conjunction such as and or but. A writer might consider this appropriate where they are trying to indicate a close relationship between two sentences, or a 'run-on' in meaning from one to the next; they don't wish the connection to be broken by the abrupt use of a full-stop.
2. It is used as a stronger division than a comma, to make meaning clear in a sentence where commas are already being used for other purposes. A common example of this use is to separate the items of a list when some of the items themselves contain commas.

In computer programming:

1. The semicolon corresponds to Unicode and ASCII character 59, or 0x003B. In many procedural programming languages it is used to separate instructions (such as in Pascal) or terminate them (as in Ada, C, and C++). In some assembly languages and many other types of code, a line beginning with a semicolon is usually a comment.

Examples

I am alone; my wife had to leave.

I traveled to London, England; Tijuana, Mexico; and Reykjavik, Iceland.

Lisa scored 2,845,770 points; Marcia, 2,312,860; and Jeff, 1,726,640.

External link

• History of the semicolon (http://www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/english/ec/resources/pot8.htm)