NY Times Praises Semicolon; English Teachers Rejoice

John Collignon, my geography and sociology teacher at Madison HS and a Lake Herman neighbor, once told me that once shared with me a key component of his grading scale for sophomore essays: "If they use a semicolon, I know they've plagiarized."

Mr. Collignon's suspicion of semicolons jumps to mind as an article about the appearance of a semicolon in a subway poster makes today's New York Times list of top ten most e-mailed articles (#3 when I checked at 10:00 a.m. CST this morning: see Sam Roberts, "Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location," New York Times, 2008.02.18). The semicolon is a great puzzler for many writers. Most people can and do skip it altogether, with little to no impact on the quality of their writing. However, even if we don't use it much, the semicolon has its place as a useful tool for clarifying and strengthening our written expression.

In celebration of the semicolon's brief moment of Net buzz, (and feeling a little nostalgia for my English classroom), I am happy to post the rules for semicolon usage. The rules are simpler than most people think, much simpler and more objective than the rules for commas. Actually, there are only two situations where you can use a semicolon:

1. You can use a semicolon to join two complete sentences that have some logical connection:
   
   • --"The king ordered the execution of 12 dissident bloggers; not to be outdone, the queen ordered 20 bloggers drawn and quartered, slowly."
     
   • --"John ate 22 pickles; later, he felt rather ill."
   • --"People say they don't like negative campaigning; nonetheless, it works."
   
   
2. You can use a semicolon to separate items in a "complicated list"; i.e., if items in the list you are writing include commas, separate the items with semicolons:
   
   • --"Our whirlwind tour of Europe took us to Zurich, Switzerland; Rome and Florence, Italy; and Heidelberg, Germany."
   • --"I went to the conference with my girlfriend; Professor Smith, the chair of the history department; Dr. Li, an individual who talks far too much; a reporter from the campus newspaper; two observers from the Student Senate, Kris and Patrick; and my academic advisor." [Write that sentence with just commas and witness the confusion that ensues!]
   • --"As president, Barack Obama will implement a 21st century economic agenda to help ensure that America can compete in a global economy, and ensure the middle class is thriving and growing. He will increase investments in infrastructure, energy independence, education, and research and development; modernize and simplify our tax code so it provides greater opportunity and relief to more Americans; and implement trade policies that benefit American workers and increase the export of American goods" ["Issues," Barack Obama campaign website, downloaded 2008.02.21 10:25 CST].
     

That's it. In any other situation, a semicolon is flat wrong.

Expect a press release from the Clinton campaign on Obama's misuse of semicolons any day now...