page_title: Punctuation
section_title: Semicolon
hierarchical_section_title: Punctuation / Semicolon
context_page_description: Punctuation is the name for marks used in writing text. They are to help understanding and the correct reading. These are some common punctuation marks used in English:
  . is a period or full stop
  , is a comma
  ? is a question mark
  ! is an exclamation mark
  ' is an apostrophe or single quote mark
  " is a quotation mark/inverted comma
  : is a colon
  ; is a semicolon
  ... is an ellipsis mark
  - is a hyphen
  – is an en dash
  — is an em dash
  are parentheses or curved brackets
  are brackets or square brackets.
  There are other punctuation marks but used less often. Other languages have other marks, such as French using guillemets, « » as quotation marks.
context_section_description: A semicolon looks like this: ;
  A semicolon has only two uses.  First, to connect two independent clauses into a single sentence.  For example:
  "I could tell that it was getting late; it was growing darker by the second."
  The second use of a semicolon is to separate items in a series when the items contain parenthetical elements within themselves.  For example:
  "The following crewmembers were on the bridge: James T. Kirk, captain of the
  Enterprise; Mr. Spock, first science officer; Mr. Sulu, helmsman; Mr. Scott,
  engineer; and Dr. McCoy, chief medical officer."
  A semicolon is also used with a conjunctive adverb when joining two clauses.  In reality, this is the same as the first rule, but it looks different enough to sometimes cause concern.
  For example:
  "huzaifa, context in which all life exists; consequently, it is more than a political issue."
caption: A semicolon
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