Semicolon
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A semicolon ( ; ) is a punctuation mark indicating a long pause. The Italian printer Aldus Manutius the Elder established the practice of using the semicolon mark to separate words of opposed meaning, and to indicate interdependent statements. [1] The earliest, general use of the semicolon in English was in 1591; Ben Jonson was the first notable English writer to systematically use them.
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[edit] English usage
In English, the semicolon (;) has two purposes:
- binding two sentences more closely than if separated by a full-stop period. It replaces conjunctions, such as and or but. Writers consider this appropriate when indicating a close relationship between two sentences, a continuation of meaning from the one to the next; the connection might break with an abrupt period.
- as a divider stronger than a comma, to clarify meaning in a sentence where commas are used for other purposes, e.g. to separate items of a list when the items contain commas.
There are several cases where semicolons may be used:
- Use a semicolon between closely-related independent clauses not conjoined with a co-ordinating conjunction: "I went to the swimming pool; I was told it was closed for scheduled maintenance."
- Use a semicolon between independent clauses linked with a transitional phrase or a conjunctive adverb: "I like to eat cows; however, they don't like to be eaten by me."
- Use a semicolon between items in a series containing internal punctuation: "There are several Waffle Houses in Atlanta, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina; Gainesville, Florida; and Mobile, Alabama."
- A semicolon can be used to separate independent clauses conjoined with coordinating conjunctions, when the clauses have internal commas that might be misread: "After the game, I won a red and blue beanie baby, four hundred thousand edible ingots, and a certificate of excellence; but when the storm came, I lost it all in a torrent of sleet, snow, and profanity."
Semicolons are followed by a lower case letter, unless that letter begins a proper noun. In documents, semicolons have no spaces before, but one or two spaces after.
[edit] Examples
- I am not alone; my wife came back to me.
- I traveled to Cambridge, England; Tijuana, Mexico; and Paris, France.
- Lisa scored 70 points; Marcia, 60; and Sam, 40.
(In the second sentence, and the second semicolon in the third sentence, the semicolons function as serial commas.)
[edit] Other languages
In Greek and Church Slavonic, a semicolon indicates a question, similar to a Latin question mark. To indicate a long pause or separate sections, each with commas (the semicolon's purpose in English), Greek uses an interpunct ( · ) and an ano teleia ( · ).
Example:
- Με συγχωρείτε· πού είναι οι τουαλέτες; (Excuse me; where are the toilets?)
[edit] Computing usage
In computer programming, the semicolon is often used to separate multiple statements (for example, Pascal, SQL and Perl). In other languages, semicolons are required after every statement (such as in PHP, Java, ActionScript (optional in ActionScript 3), Lingo Script and the C family). Other languages (for instance, some assembly languages and LISP dialects) use semicolons to mark the beginning of comments. In computer systems, the semicolon is represented by Unicode and ASCII character 59 or 0x3B. The EBCDIC semicolon character is 94 or 0x5E.
The semicolon is often used to separate elements of a string of text. For example, multiple e-mail addresses in the "To" field in some e-mail clients have to be delimited by a semicolon.
In Microsoft Excel, the semicolon is used as a list separator, especially in cases where the decimal separator is a comma.
Example:
- 0,32; 3,14; 4,50 (instead of 0.32, 3.14, 4.50)
- In c++ --> int x; x=1; cout << x << endl;
[edit] Mathematics
In the argument list of a mathematical function 
, a semicolon may be used to separate variables and parameters.
In differential geometry, a semicolon preceding an index is used to indicate the covariant derivative of a function with respect to the coordinate associated with that index.
[edit] References
- ^ Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, 2003. p. 77. ISBN 1-592-40087-6.
- Hacker, Diana (2002). The Bedford Handbook (6th ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's ISBN 0-312-41281-9.
[edit] External links
- History of the semicolon
- The Poor, Misunderstood Semicolon - A plain-English guide to semicolon usage.
- Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location - New York Times, Feb. 18, 2008.
