The semicolon

I like semicolons, because they do so much in a sentence. When I tell them this, the students look at me, wondering if this is going to be a grammar lesson and they can go to a safe place behind their eyes while I talk.

Semicolons are like the iron filigree dripping off a balcony or adorning a gate; you never know how strong they are until you begin looking at the structure.


Semicolons point up the unexpected: He asked her to marry him; she fell out of bed laughing.

Semicolons note that there are more aspects to the subject than we might prefer: I can agree with your points; however there are six areas we need to discuss.

Semicolons offer several perspectives: Group work; or, stacking the group stacks the results (a chapter title from a book I wrote titled Teaching from a Positive Perspective)

The period is a full stop, the comma is a partial slide, the question mark wants the audience to participate, the colon says that we better pay attention to the enumerated list that’s going to follow; the semicolon insists that to know what’s going on we need to analyze the parts and then synthesize their relationship.