I was taught it in school, have looked it up on Wikipedia, seen infographics, YouTube videos, etc., and yet I still do not know when to use those things. At this point I just refuse to purely out of fear.
I have one easy rule, and two examples. Use them when using a comma would be confusing.
Examples: often in lists, where each item might contain a comma and so trying to separate list items with commas would just be confusing; and more broadly anywhere where you have a sentance containing clauses and need a different separator.
I just used the first example above: to separate the two list items, and the other one I’m using here, where I’m already using commas; using a semicolon allows braking this up without starting a new sentance.
That second example was somewhat contrived, but does the job; it could have been two sentences.
Actually, there’s another place I use them, but it’s not a “rule” and if more style: I use them selectively in place of periods to prevent a series of short, choppy sentences.
You can use a semicolon wherever you’d logically break in a sentence, without pausing overtly, but intend to follow the thought; semi-colons slip naturally into your thought process when you practice it by speaking.
I was taught it in school, have looked it up on Wikipedia, seen infographics, YouTube videos, etc., and yet I still do not know when to use those things. At this point I just refuse to purely out of fear.
Wikipedia has some examples; they are always super helpful in cases like this.
I’ve always done this one:
Between closely related [independent clauses].
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_clause “Independent clause”) not conjoined with a coordinating conjunction, when the two clauses are balanced, opposed or contradictory:[23].
Basically you use them at points where you’d usually put a period, but you don’t want to add as much of a pause.
ETA:
For example
could also be written as
but it wouldn’t sound as nice.
I have one easy rule, and two examples. Use them when using a comma would be confusing.
Examples: often in lists, where each item might contain a comma and so trying to separate list items with commas would just be confusing; and more broadly anywhere where you have a sentance containing clauses and need a different separator.
I just used the first example above: to separate the two list items, and the other one I’m using here, where I’m already using commas; using a semicolon allows braking this up without starting a new sentance.
That second example was somewhat contrived, but does the job; it could have been two sentences.
Actually, there’s another place I use them, but it’s not a “rule” and if more style: I use them selectively in place of periods to prevent a series of short, choppy sentences.
You can use a semicolon wherever you’d logically break in a sentence, without pausing overtly, but intend to follow the thought; semi-colons slip naturally into your thought process when you practice it by speaking.
The rules are all made up; punctuation can be used wherever you like.