The Outcast

[redhorsejacket@lemmy.world]

While that may be true, you also put them in places that should have a comma, but you want more pause; this is why boiling it down to a single aphorism is difficult.

For example, I've read most of the comments in this thread, as well as the Oatmeal info-comic that someone linked, and I still don't know with certainty the semicolon I used above is grammatically appropriate.

[yesoutwater@lemm.ee]

I call this; the ee cummings

[mrslt@lemmy.world]

You would use a semi-colon in places where a comma and a colon would be equally suitable, pretty much.

[homicidalrobot@lemm.ee]

Where a period or a comma followed by "And" would go. Semicolon is a full break, distinctly more than a comma

[prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works]

You can use a semicolon wherever you’d logically pause in a sentence but intend to follow the thought; semi-colons slip naturally into your thought process when you practice it by speaking.