
On Semicolons and the Rules of Writing - apollinaire
https://themillions.com/2018/07/on-semicolons-and-the-rules.html
======
codesections
Semicolons can also be extremely helpful for lists with internal punctuation,
especially in technical writing. I recently wrote the following sentence in
some documentation:

    
    
      By default, Gutenberg will look for three templates:
      index.html, which is applied to the site homepage; 
      section.html, which is applied to all sections (any 
      HTML page generated by creating a directory within 
      your content directory); and page.html, which is 
      applied to all pages (any HTML page generated by 
      creating a .md file within your content directory).
    

Omitting semicolons from that sentence would have made it much harder to
understand, at least in my view.

~~~
auxym
Whenever I find myself writing lists in technical writing, I seriously
consider if I can express that information in a table or bullet list.

~~~
cirgue
Technical writing is a bit of a different beast: you’re writing both to
instruct first-time readers and to serve as an authoritative reference for
people who have read the document or are otherwise already familiar with the
subject.

------
lloeki
I quite entertained the same point of view of the author about semicolons. The
best use of them is when they're used sparingly, hence carrying more precise
weight and meaning.

Now there is something quite peculiar about that punctuation mark's naming,
which has some dissonant trait of causality (what colons are used for), and
always found the French name "point-virgule" (period-comma) much more apt.

~~~
ModernMech
The naming fits if you think about the implications of the mark on the flow of
a sentence. A colon is a pretty hard stop when I read, while a comma is barely
a pause. A semicolon is in between the two; you don't stop as long as the
colon, but you pause a little longer than a comma (did I use it correctly? ;P
)

~~~
ChristianBundy
Is there any chance you're mistaking a "colon" for a full stop (period)?

~~~
ModernMech
My precedence order is (!|.|?) > : > ; > ,

~~~
vorg
_It took a few moments to realize you mean:_

To me, exclamation mark, full stop and question mark are of equal precedence;
they are higher than colon, which is higher than semi-colon, and that is
higher than comma.

~~~
ModernMech
Sorry, I didn't provide a parser for my syntax :P

------
Jaruzel
I tend to over use semicolons; they help convey my fractured way of thinking.

~~~
runesoerensen
What’s fractured about _“I use X because it helps me do Y”_ though? The
semicolon didn’t convey that efficiently to me, but it did make the overuse
point :)

~~~
stochastic_monk
I would have used a full colon between those two sentences; no more half
measures.

------
hazz99
I love the writing style of this author. Experiencing a well-written bit of
content is refreshing, and honestly makes me want to go write something. I
haven't felt like this since I moved from primary school fiction to adult
novels.

~~~
lbotos
I love this feeling! Go write. I've learned over time to harness this even
when I find something _poorly_ written, almost as a rebellion and an effort to
do it better. :D

------
crazygringo
For the average reader, semicolons are simply archaic, and there is always a
contemporary — which is why you don't see them that often.

When they're used to indicate a separate larger than a comma but less than
separate sentences, an em-dash works just a well without any of the pretense:
from

 _" My wife would like tea; I would prefer coffee."_

to

 _" My wife would like tea — I would prefer coffee."_

And using them to separate list items which themselves contain commas is
asking the reader to do too much work to parse things visually, since
semicolons are so similar to commas. Literature can use parentheses or em
dashes, while technical material can use lists. Observe how much easier all of
the following transformations are to parse at a glance:

 _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._

 _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)._

 _Several fast food restaurants can be found within the following cities:
London, England; Paris, France; Dublin, Ireland; Madrid, Spain._

 _Several fast food restaurants can be found within the following cities: 1)
London, England, 2) Paris, France, 3) Dublin, Ireland, and 4) Madrid, Spain._

 _Here are three examples of familiar sequences: one, two, and three; a, b,
and c; first, second, and third._

 _Here are three examples of familiar sequences:_

 _\- one, two, and three_

 _\- a, b, and c_

 _\- first, second, and third._

In academic papers you can sometimes wind up having such hierarchies of
information and restricted space (e.g. in footnotes) that semicolons become
necessary, just like legal documents use § to mark sections... but academic
writing and citations has all sorts of conventions of its own.

~~~
ummonk
The semicolon version reads like you're just providing information about both
your preferences. The em-dash version reads like you're disagreeing with your
wife. Em-dash tends to indicate that the second clause somehow applies to the
first clause.

~~~
akvadrako
I agree they convey different intentions. If they were read aloud the dash
would be a slightly longer pause.

------
motohagiography
While I don't use semicolons often, to me they are useful for three things:
ordered lists, where options are related or parenthetical; to conjoin or
inline an example; or a kind of silent differential to orient the idea in a
paragraph in a new direction. It's not relevant in business anymore, but
useful in tech writing.

In business, the tone and style of email is all about affecting power in
environments where people pretend there are no rules that would imply
accountability. The result is an absurd competition of who can be more brief,
less coherent, and affect the ostentatious transfer of the burden of
comprehension to the bottom dog.

------
spiralganglion
I recently read, and very much enjoyed, this author's article on the em-dash:
[https://themillions.com/2018/01/regarding-the-em-
dash.html](https://themillions.com/2018/01/regarding-the-em-dash.html)

(Why yes, it was tempting to use _the mark_ in place of those commas. But I
prefer the style of putting spaces around the em-dash, and I fear being
downvoted into oblivion by any pedants who strongly adhere to the no-space
norms. So commas it is.)

------
CalChris
I've been to college. This isn't a pretense; it's a fact. I really don't mind
if my writing shows that. Indeed, I prefer it.

------
anacleto
Wonderful read.

The line between how punctuation has evolved (Classic Latin didn't use any
punctuation) until modern days and, programming languages syntaxes is indeed
very subtle.

I just wrote a thing about it here. [0]

[0]
[https://twitter.com/leonardofed/status/1018097202017730560](https://twitter.com/leonardofed/status/1018097202017730560)

------
0x445442
_I sit at the table after dinner and find myself from time to time taking nuts
or raisins out of the dish and eating them. My dinner properly is over, and in
the heat of the conversation I am hardly aware of what I do; but the
perception of the fruit, and the fleeting notion that I may eat it, seem
fatally to bring the act about._

Here's the way I'd have written it:

I sit at the table after dinner and find myself from time to time taking nuts
or raisins out of the dish and eating them. My dinner properly is over and in
the heat of the conversation I am hardly aware of what I do. But the
perception of the fruit and the fleeting notion that I may eat it, seem
fatally to bring the act about.

Maybe Perl is like English... TMTOWTDI

~~~
dragonwriter
Your version has a run-on sentence (two independent clauses joined by a bare
conjunction without a conversation comma), but, yes, substituting a full stop
for the semicolon joining independent clauses is acceptable (the difference is
in degree of implied attachment between the independent clauses, so it's not
strictly equivalent, but neither is definitively superior.)

------
mcguire
I prefer tapioca. Some people say they like butterscotch, but they're wrong.

------
lucio
How many of you were expecting a javascript-related article?

~~~
chris_st
Or Go! I've been doing a lot of JS at work, and Go at home; I recently rewrote
an android app in Flutter, and it's just weird for the IDE to insist on
semicolons after happily giving up on them :-)

------
AltVanilla
Jane Austen's "magnificent opening sentence of Persuasion" was 102 words long.
I found it confusing. Replacing all the semicolons with periods, made it easy
and enjoyable reading.

I prefer the minimalist style of Strunk:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style)

~~~
ghaff
There's a lot wrong with Strunk & White. (For a particularly over the top
critique, see
[http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf](http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf)
)

But modern style definitely tends toward short sentences. With a lot of
periods. Even if you create sentence fragments. Sort of Hemingway-esque.

Which does tend to deprecate semi-colons. I enjoyed Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
But, as a participant in my company's semi-formal writing style group, I found
a lot of the examples contrived and overly complex. As in programming, once
you get into trying to figure out the official precedence of operators, you've
already lost the game. Rework things so the answer is immediately obvious to
people who don't remember whether booleans are computed before exponents.

~~~
jimhefferon
I get a dead link there.

~~~
ghaff
Somehow ended up being an extra period in there. Works now.

------
8bitsrule
I like'em (hermy or not). A semicolon marks the end of a phrase; it promises
that what follows it continues the same thought (not something brand-new). (In
most writing, a period makes no such promise.)

------
anonytrary
In high school, we were taught to use semicolons in place of the word
"furthermore"; they also tend to be more specific than em-dashes -- which can
be used haphazardly.

------
limeyx
Shouldn't that be "On Semicolons; the rules of writing" ?

------
ggm
came here hoping not to find references to pascal or c; was not disappointed.

------
icedchai
Yep. Semicolons are useless. Move on.

