A semicolon is not a part of a digestive organ, no more than a comma is a state of being deeply unconscious. What’s with all this confusion about how to use the semicolon? And why do writers avoid it like the plague? Is it because it’s old-fashioned, optional, or middle-class? No. The main reason why the semicolon is so carefully avoided is because it’s considered dangerous.
The semicolon is the ninja of punctuation – not just because it’s dressed in black, but because it performs sneaky, almost invisible feats, and people are afraid of it. They know it is useful, but it’s so easy to use incorrectly that it might just come back and stab you in the back.
Lynne Truss states that a semicolon functions as a hint to the reader that “the elements of a sentence, although grammatically distinct, are actually elements of a single notion” (124). They also break up comma fights, and keep those tricky sentence adverbs where they belong: in their own sentence.
An important thing to remember is to never use a semicolon where you could not use a period. There is never a dull moment in the world of punctuation, and those semicolon-ninjas prove it. Although useful, they can’t just be thrown in anywhere.
A semicolon may seem scary, but it’s really just a lonely dot-slash that needs to be accepted and loved. So love your semicolon-ninja and make use of it; it’s not as dangerous as it looks. It’s capable of many extraordinary, yet inconspicuous, things.
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