THE SEMI-COLON
507. The semi-colon indicates a break more complete than that of the comma. The period indicates a complete break in the thought. So the comma indicates a slight break, the semi-colon a greater break in the thought, and the period, the completion of the thought.
RULES FOR THE USE OF THE SEMI-COLON
508. The semi-colon is often used instead of the comma where a longer pause is desired or we wish to indicate a greater break in the thought. For example:
"The wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still."
509. As a rule we separate by semi-colons those parts of the sentences that are already punctuated by commas. For example:
- After considerable delay, he came back to look for his friends; but, though he looked diligently, he could not find them.
510. The semi-colon is used to separate closely connected simple sentences when the conjunction is omitted. The continual repetition of the conjunction would become very tiresome and detract from the forcefulness of our sentences. So instead of continually repeating the conjunction we separate these simple sentences by semi-colons. For example: