Things You Should Know: When to Use Semicolons
Episode 36
Am; I; using; semicolons; correctly?? Find out on this episode of Piper’s Paraphrases, where Professor Pipes talks about the proper uses for semicolons.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to this Things You Should Know episode of Piper’s Paraphrases. I’m Professor Pipes, and I’m here to tell you that you should know how to use semicolons correctly.
I know what you’re thinking: you just throw in semicolons all over the place because they make you seem smarter, right?? Wrong! Surprisingly, there are only a couple of specific uses for the semicolon.
A semicolon basically looks like a period and a comma combined, and it is kind of a midway point between the two, but it has its own specific functions: the first of which is to combine related sentences.
Before you can fully understand semicolons, you need to know what makes up a sentence. A simple sentence, or independent clause, has a subject and a verb, and expresses a full thought. Ice cream is delicious. “Ice cream” is our subject, “is” is the verb, and “delicious” finishes up the thought. Why in the world do we need to know that? Because everyone in the world deserves to know how great ice cream is! Oh! Why do we need to know what makes up a sentence? Well because that’s the first use for a semicolon: it separates two, related independent clauses, or sentences by taking the place of a period. So, no, you can’t use a semicolon between the sentences “Cooper is the best; I like pineapples” because those two sentences are not at all related. However, you could use one between the sentences “Cooper is the best; the cats are jealous of him” or between “Ice cream is delicious; it is a great choice for dessert.” Yes, these ideas could be separated with a period instead, so you want to use this type of semicolon sparingly, and just when you want to connect closely related sentences with a shorter pause than a normal period. These sentences could also be separated by a comma and a coordinating conjunction, such as “and,” so, again, you want to use a semicolon instead only when you want a little more separation than with a comma and a conjunction but a little less separation than with a period.
The next function of a semicolon is as a super comma! Duh duh duh DUH super comma to the rescue!!
Sadly, no, this doesn’t mean that semicolons go out and solve crimes. Instead, they are used when you need to separate items in a sentence but are already using commas within those separate items. In other words, you need an extra strong comma, a supercomma! For example, if I wanted to tell you about all the best places I’ve ever travelled to, I might say, “The coolest places I’ve visited are Paris, France, Florence, Italy, and New York, New York.” Without super commas, it would sound like my favorite places are Paris and France and Florence and Italy and New York and New York again, apparently. I guess it’s twice as cool? But, no, I just didn’t take advantage of the super comma known as the semicolon! Obviously I need to leave commas between each city and country, or state, so to separate each of these locations from the others, I would use a semicolon. The sentence becomes, “The coolest places I’ve visited are Paris, France; Florence, Italy; and New York, New York.” Three cool cities. You’d also use a semicolon if you needed to provide descriptions of items within a list. For example, “You’ll know you’re actually dating a ghost if they walk through walls; you can see through them, which, by the way, is a dead giveaway; and they like to make whooooooing noises all the time.” Semicolon tips and helpful dating advice! That’s what I’m here for!
Finally, the absolutely most important use for the semicolon: making an old school winky face without proper emojis.
Thanks for watching this Things You Should Know episode of Piper’s Paraphrases. Now go forth; read a bunch of books, magazines, comics, backs of cereal boxes, whatever; and be good people! (I snuck one more semicolon in there for ya)
