Semicolon

Semicolon

The semicolon or semi-colon ; is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought. When a semicolon joins two or more ideas in one sentence, those ideas are then given equal rank. Semicolons can also be used in place of commas to separate the items in a list, particularly when the elements of that list contain commas.The semicolon is one of the least understood of the standard marks, and so it is probably not used by many English speakers.In the QWERTY keyboard layout, the semicolon resides in the unshifted homerow beneath the little finger of the right hand and has become widely used in programming languages as a statement separator or terminator.

Update this biography »
Complete biography of Semicolon »