Semicolon

This lesson is on the semicolon the semicolon looks like a full stop on top of a comma.

As shown in brackets here it signals a stronger break than a comma but not as strong as a full stop.

In other words it’s somewhere between a comma and a full stop.

They used to split list items when the list items themselves contain commerce also used to list instructions and can be used to form compound sentences out of related clauses because some examples to split list items when the list item themselves contain commerce.

For example addresses can often have commerce in them as in I used to live in Denver Colorado so the town and the state are separated by a comma as we see here.

Look at this sentence over the last 10 years I’ve lived in Denver Colorado Portland Oregon Seattle Washington and Washington DC It’s very confusing when we just use a comma because some of the Commerce separate a town from the state and some commerce separate.

The list items and it’s really not clear which is which.

So this is what we do.

We replace the commerce that separate the list items for the semicolon and leave the comma that separate the town from the state.

And this makes it much easier to read and it makes the intent a lot clearer.

So is still read the same over the last ten years I’ve lived in Denver Colorado Portland Oregon Seattle Washington and Washington DC.

What we do is when we read it we leave slightly longer pauses between the semicolons and we do between the commerce and then the intent and the meaning is a lot clearer.

All can be used to list instructions as in your homework is as follows.

Task one semicolon task to semicolon task 3 or we can list them vertically.

A few tasks we need to complete before the next meeting and then as listed in bullet points.

Task 1

Task 2

and Task 3

or we can use semicolons to form compound sentences out of related clauses so if we have two separate sentences I hope the traffic is light.

We don’t want to be late for the meeting.

These these two separate short sentences are related one hopes that there’s not too much traffic and the result of this is they won’t be late for the meeting.

So they are related.

So one way of doing it is with a comma is to say I hope the traffic is light comma as we don’t want to be late for the meeting or we can use a semicolon and we don’t need then the word as we just say.

I hope the traffic is light.

We don’t want to be late for the meeting.