The Power of Semicolons!
photo credit: Paul Worthington
The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe. — David Hare
For many years, my favorite word has been “ambivalence” – experiencing simultaneous conflicting emotions. And this week’s mark of punctuation is the perfect complement to this word: the semicolon!
The semicolon is so simple, yet powerful. If you have two sentences, closely related in some way, simply join them with a semicolon:
Juno is a fifteen-year-old border collie/pit-bull mix; she is surprisingly spry and enthusiastic.
In order to finish on time, we must stay very focused; fun distractions cannot supercede our responsiblities.
Now, if you are wondering why we cannot use a comma instead, please check out our previous post on commas and clauses (specifically the “comma splice” section).
And that’s it for this week! Unless, of course, you have any questions… If so, simply drop me a comment. Next week we will discover the difference between dashes and colons… Stay tuned!
Wondering what Tuesday Tips you’ve missed?
- Why Punctuation Matters
- Apostrophes: Contractions
- Apostrophes: Possessives
- Apostrophes: Plurals
- Commas: Lists
- Commas: Clauses
- Commas: Loose Ends
- Commas: Pairs
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