THE SEMICOLON

[the Citizen]

Dear Pencilers..

Again iam continuing my posts. Sorry for the delay. Last post i gave
you all some information related to the punctuation "FULLSTOP". This
time my post is in the same category, punctuation, but different
topic. yes its "SEMICOLON".
Hope such kind of topics don't make you all feeling bored. Ok lets get
in to the post.

The semicolon is the point usually employed to separate parts of a
sentence between which there is a
very distinct break, but which are too intimately connected to be made
separate sentences.
The patient dates his pleasure from the day when he feels that his
cure has begun; and, perhaps, the day of his
perfect re-establishment does not yield him pleasure so great.
The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; no one
has so deeply meditated on the subject;
no one is so sincerely interested in the event.
Not one word is said, nor one suggestion made, of a general right to
choose our own governors; to cashier
them for misconduct; and to form a government for ourselves.
The semicolon is used in enumerations, as in the last example, in
order to keep the parts more distinctly
separate.
When a sentence consists of two or more independent clauses not
joined by conjunctions, the clauses
are separated by semicolons.
To command a crime is to commit one; he who commands an assassination,
is by every one regarded as an
assassin.
His knowledge was too multifarious to be always exact; his pursuits
were too eager to be always cautious.
If the conjunction "and" were inserted in the last sentence, the comma
would be used instead of the semicolon.
A conjunction forms a bridge over the gap between two statements, and,
where they are neither long nor
complicated, we pass from one to the other without noticing any
distinct break. But there is such a break when
the conjunction is omitted, and therefore we use a stronger point. The
two parts of an antithesis are generally
separated in this way.
A pause generally indicated by a comma may be indicated by a
semicolon when commas are used in
the sentence for other purposes. (See Introduction: Relativity of
Points.)
I got several things of less value, but not all less useful to me,
which I omitted setting down before: as, in
particular, pens, ink, and paper; several parcels in the captain's,
mate's, gunner's, and carpenter's keeping;
three or four compasses, some mathematical instruments, dials,
perspectives, charts, and books of navigation.
In this I was certainly in the wrong too, the honest, grateful
creature having no thought but what consisted of
the best principles, both as a religious Christian and as a grateful
friend; as appeared afterward to my full satisfaction.
In the first sentence the semicolon enables us to group the objects
enumerated. Had commas been used
throughout, the reader would have been left to find out the
arrangement for himself.

Ivan
Thalabathi.

Source: "Stops", by Paul Allardyce