The semi-colon: a thread for @MPAVictoria.

The semicolon is an indispensable tool. There are three main uses of the semi colon: 1) to join two related independent clauses (an independent clause is a grammatical sentence): “The cat ran away; it was very fast.” >

There’re 4 types of sentences:
A) Simple: “The cat ran away.”
B) Complex: “The cat ran away, even though it was old.”
C) Compound: “The cat ran away; it was fast.”
D) Compound-Complex: “The cat ran away; even though it was old, it was very fast.” [A colon would work here, too.]
>

A semi-colon (like a colon), therefore, shows a relationship between the two independent clauses in a compound sentence.

2) The colon is also used to introduce a conjunctive adverb between two independent clauses.

>

“The cat ran away; however, it was lost.”

“It was Cowboy’s cat; therefore, it was weird.”
>

3) Finally, the semicolon is used to separate elements in a list with internal punctuation:

“I have lived in London, Ontario; Waterloo, Ontario; Burnaby, BC; Calgary, Alberta; Nobleford, Alberta, and Lethbridge, Alberta.”>

This concludes today’s lesson in why semicolons are kick-ass pieces of punctuation; they really are.