The semicolon ; (or semi-colon) is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought, such as when restating the preceding idea with a different expression. When a semicolon joins two or more ideas in one sentence, those ideas are then given equal rank. Semicolons can also be used in place of commas to separate items in a list, particularly when the elements of the list themselves have embedded commas. The semicolon is one of the least understood of the standard marks, and is not frequently used by many English speakers. In the QWERTY keyboard layout, the semicolon resides in the unshifted homerow beneath the little finger of the right hand. It has become widely used in programming languages as a statement separator or terminator.
History
In 1496, the semicolon ; is attested in Pietro Bembo's book De Aetna printed by Aldo Manuzio. The punctuation also appears in later writings of Bembo. Moreover, it is used in 1507 by Bartolomeo Sanvito, who was close to Manuzio's circle. In 1561, Manuzio's grandson, also called Aldo Manuzio, explains the semicolon's use with several examples in Orthographiae ratio. In particular, Manuzio motivates the need for punctuation (interpungō) to divide (distinguō) sentences and thereby make them understandable. The comma, semicolon, colon, and period are seen as steps, ascending from low to high; the semicolon thereby being an intermediate value between the comma , and colon :. Here are four examples used in the book to illustrate this:
Publica, privata; sacra, profana; tua, aliena. Public, private; sacred, profane; thine, another's.
Ratio docet, si adversa fortuna sit, nimium dolendum non esse; si secunda, moderate laetandum. Reason teaches, if fortune is adverse, not to complain too much; if favorable, to rejoice in moderation.
Tu, quid divitiae valeant, libenter spectas; quid virtus, non item. You, what riches are worth, gladly consider; what virtue (is worth), not so much.
Etsi ea perturbatio est omnium rerum, ut suae quemque fortunae maxime paeniteat; nemoque sit, quin ubivis, quam ibi, ubi est, esse malit: tamen mihi dubium non est, quin hoc tempore bono viro, Romae esse, miserrimum sit. Although it is a universal confusion of affairs(,) such that everyone regrets their own fate above all others; and there is no one, who would not rather anywhere else in the world, than there, where he is, prefer to be: yet I have no doubt, at the present time for an honest man, to be in Rome, is the worst form of misery.
Around 1580, Henry Denham starts using the semicolon "with propriety" for English texts, and more widespread usage picks up in the next decades. Around 1640, in Ben Jonson's book The English Grammar, the character ; is described as "somewhat a longer breath" compared to the comma. The aim of the breathing, according to Jonson, is to aid understanding. In 1644, in Richard Hodges' The English Primrose, it is written:
At a comma, stop a little; [...] At a semi-colon, somewhat more; [...] At a colon, a little more than the former; [...] At a period, make a full stop;
In 1762, in Robert Lowth's A Short Introduction to English Grammar, a parallel is drawn between punctuation marks and rest in music:
The Period is a pause in quantity or duration double of the Colon; the Colon is double of the Semicolon; and the Semicolon is double of the Comma. So that they are in the same proportion to one another as the Sembrief, the Minim, the Crotchet, and the Quaver, in Music.
In 1798, in Lindley Murray's English Grammar, the semicolon is introduced as follows:
The Semicolon is used for dividing a compound sentence into two or more parts, not so closely connected as those which are separated by a comma, nor yet so little dependent on each other, as those which are distinguished by a colon. The semicolon is sometimes used, when the preceding member of the sentence does not of itself give a complete sense, but depends on the following clause; and sometimes when the sense of that member would be complete without the concluding one; as in the following instances.
Natural languages
English Although terminal marks (i.e. full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks) indicate the end of a sentence, the comma, semicolon, and colon are normally inside sentences, making them secondary boundary marks. In modern English orthography, the semicolon falls between terminal marks and the comma; its strength is equal to that of the colon. The most common use of the semicolon is to join two independent clauses without using a conjunction such as the word and. Semicolons are followed by a lower case letter, unless that letter would ordinarily be capitalised mid-sentence (e.g., the word "I", acronyms/initialisms, or proper nouns). In older English printed texts, colons and semicolons are offset from the preceding word by a non-breaking space, a convention still current in modern continental French texts. Ideally, the space is less wide than the inter-word spaces. Some guides recommend separation by a hair space. Modern style guides recommend no space before them and one space after. They also typically recommend placing semicolons outside ending quotation marks, although this was not always the case. For example, the first edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (1906) recommended placing the semicolon inside ending quotation marks. Uses of the semicolon in English include:
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