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| {{lede too short | date=January 2014}}
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| The '''semicolon''' (;) is a [[punctuation]] mark with several uses. The first printed semicolon was the work of the [[Italy |Italian]] printer [[Aldus Manutius]], the Elder in 1494.<ref name="Truss 2004 111">{{cite book |title= Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation|last= Truss|first= Lynn|year= 2004|publisher= Gotham Books|location= New York|isbn= 1-59240-087-6|page=111}}</ref> Manutius established the practice of using the semicolon to separate [[word]]s of opposed meaning and to allow a rapid change in direction in connecting [[interdependent]] statements.<ref name="truss">{{cite book | last = Truss | first = Lynne | authorlink = Lynne Truss | title = [[Eats, Shoots & Leaves]] | year = 2003 | page = 77 | isbn = 1-59240-087-6}}</ref> [[Ben Jonson]] was the first notable English writer to use the semicolon systematically. The modern uses of the semicolon relate either to the listing of items or to the linking of related [[clause]]s. In Unicode it is encoded at {{unichar|003B|Semicolon|nlink=Semicolon|html=}}.
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| According to [[Lynne Truss]], a British writer on grammar, many non-writers avoid the [[Colon_(punctuation)|colon]] and semicolon for various reasons: "They are old-fashioned", "They are middle-class", "They are optional", "They are mysteriously connected to pausing", "They are dangerously addictive (''vide'' Virginia Woolf)", and "The difference between them is too negligible to be grasped by the brain of man".<ref>{{cite book |title= Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation|last= Truss|first= Lynn|year= 2005|publisher= Gotham Books|location= New York|isbn= 1-59240-087-6|pages=109–110}}</ref>
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| ==English==
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| [[File:SemicolonFreq.png|thumb|left|The frequency of semicolons in English texts from 1500–2008]]
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| While terminal marks (i.e., [[full stop]]s, [[exclamation mark]]s, and [[question mark]]s) mark the end of a sentence, the [[comma]], semicolon and [[Colon (punctuation)|colon]] are normally sentence internal, making them secondary boundary marks. The semicolon falls between terminal marks and the comma; its strength is equal to that of the colon.<ref>''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'', Chapter 19, §7.</ref>
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| ===Constraints===
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| #When a semicolon marks the right boundary of a constituent (e.g., a clause or a phrase), the left boundary is marked by punctuation of equal or greater strength.
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| #When two or more semicolons are used within a single construction, all constituents are at the same level unlike commas which can separate, for example, subordinate clauses from main clauses.
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| ===Usage===
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| Semicolons are followed by a [[lower case]] letter, unless that letter is the first letter of a [[proper noun]] like the word I or Paris. Modern [[style guides]] recommend no space before them and one space after. They also typically recommend placing semicolons outside ending [[quotation marks]], although this was not always the case. For example, the first edition of the ''Chicago Manual of Style'' (1906) recommended placing the semicolon inside ending quotation marks.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://typedesk.com/2011/02/15/chicago-manual-of-style-16th-edition-2 |title= Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition |author= David Spencer|date= 15 February 2011|work= Type Desk|publisher= Matador |accessdate= 16 March 2011}}</ref>
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| Applications of the semicolon in English include:
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| *Between items in a series or listing containing internal [[punctuation]], especially parenthetic commas, where the semicolons function as [[serial comma]]s:
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| **''The people present were Jamie, who came from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man.''
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| **''Several fast food restaurants can be found within the following cities: London, England; Paris, France; Dublin, Ireland; Madrid, Spain.''
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| **''Here are three examples of familiar sequences: one, two, and three; a, b, and c; first, second, and third.''
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| **''She stood at the edge, deciding her course of action; changed her mind and walked home.''
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| **''(Fig. 8; see also plates in Harley 1941, 1950; Schwab 1947).''
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| :This is by far the most frequent use currently.<ref>http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/?c=bnc&q=8899086</ref>
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| *Between closely related [[independent clause]]s not conjoined with a [[Grammatical conjunction|coordinating conjunction]], when the two parts of the sentence are balanced, opposed or contradictory:
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| **''My wife would like tea; I would prefer coffee.''
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| **''I went to the basketball court; I was told it was closed for cleaning.''
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| **''I told Kate she's running for the hills; I wonder if she knew I was joking.''
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| **''At the mall I bought four things; my sister bought only two things.''
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| *Between independent clauses linked with a [[transitional phrase]] or a [[conjunctive adverb]]:
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| **''Everyone knows he is guilty of committing the crime; of course, it will never be proven.''<ref>http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/semicolons_before_transitional_phrases.htm ''Semicolon before a transitional phrase''. "Everyone knows he is guilty; of course, it will never be proved. ''(The transitional phrase "of course" acts like a bridge between the first half and the second half.)''"Date accessed: 17 September 2010.</ref>
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| **''It can occur in both melodic and harmonic lines; however, it is subject to certain restraints. ''
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| **''Of these patients, 6 were not enrolled; thus, the cohort was composed of 141 patients at baseline.''
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| :This is the least common use, and is mostly confined to academic texts.<ref>http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/?c=bnc&q=8899010</ref>
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| ==Other languages==
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| === Arabic ===
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| In [[Arabic language|Arabic]], the semicolon is called ''Fāṣila Manqūṭa'' ({{lang-ar|فاصلة منقوطة}}) which means literally "a dotted comma", and is written inverted ( ؛ ). In Arabic, the semicolon has several uses:
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| * It can be used between two phrases, in which the first phrase causes the second.
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| :Example: "He played much; so, his clothes became dirty". ({{lang-ar|لقد لعب كثيرًا؛ فاتسخت ملابسه.‏}})
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| * It can be used in two phrases, where the second is ''a reason'' for the first.
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| :Example: "Your sister did not get high marks; because she didn't study sincerely". ({{lang-ar|لم تحقق أختك درجات عالية؛ لأنها ما درست بإخلاص.‏}})
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| === Greek and Church Slavonic ===
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| In [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Church Slavonic language|Church Slavonic]], a semicolon indicates a question, similar to a Latin [[question mark]].<ref name="Truss 2004 111"/> To indicate a long pause or separate sections, each with commas (the semicolon's purpose in English), Greek uses the "άνω τελεία", an [[interpunct]] ( · ).
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| Examples:
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| Greek: Με συγχωρείτε· πού είναι ο σταθμός; (Excuse me; where is the station?)
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| Church Slavonic: гдѣ єсть рождeйсѧ царь їудeйскій; (Where is the one who is born king of the Jews? - Matthew 2:1)
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| === French ===
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| In [[French language|French]], a semicolon is used where either a colon or a comma would be only half appropriate. The phrase following a semicolon can be either a full sentence (as if following a period) or a phrase (as if following a comma). However, in no case would the first next word be capitalized (except for intrinseque reason). Its meaning is only slightly related to the [[colon]]'s, if at all.
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| The closest English equivalent would be an en or em [[dash]]. The dash character is used in French writing too (for example, by Belgian novellist [[Georges Simenon]]), but not as widely as the semicolon.
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| Usage of these devices (semicolon and dash) somehow varies from author to author.
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| ==Literature==
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| {{Quote box
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| | quote = "Just as there are writers who worship the semicolon, there are other high stylists who dismiss it – who label it, if you please, middle-class."
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| | source = [[Lynne Truss]], ''Eats, Shoots, and Leaves''.<ref>{{cite book |title= Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation|last= Truss|first= Lynn|year= 2004|publisher= Gotham Books|location= New York|isbn= 1-59240-087-6|page=107}}</ref>
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| | width = 27%
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| | align = right
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| | style = padding:8px;
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| }}
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| Some authors have spurned the semicolon throughout their works. [[Lynne Truss]] stated that "[[Samuel Beckett]] spliced his way merrily through such novels as ''Molloy'' and ''Malone Dies'', thumbing his nose at the semicolon all the way," "[[James Joyce]] preferred the colon, as more authentically classical; [[P. G. Wodehouse]] did an effortlessly marvelous job without it; [[George Orwell]] tried to avoid the semicolon completely in ''Coming up for Air,'' (1939)," "[[Martin Amis]] included just one semicolon in ''Money'' (1984)," and "[[Umberto Eco]] was congratulated by an academic reader for using no semicolons in [[The Name of the Rose]] (1983)."<ref>{{cite book |title= Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation|last= Truss|first= Lynn|year= 2004|publisher= Gotham Books|location= New York|isbn= 1-59240-087-6|pages=88, 108–109}}</ref>
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| [[Kurt Vonnegut]] in ''A Man Without a Country'' (2005) famously stated: "Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."
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| ==Computing usage==
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| {{also|Colon (punctuation)#Computing}}
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| The semicolon is represented by [[Unicode]] and [[ASCII]] [[character (computing)|character]] {{unichar|003B|Semicolon|dec=}}. The [[EBCDIC]] semicolon character is 94 or [[hexadecimal|0x5E]]. Scripts comprising wide characters, such as [[kanji]], use a full-width equivalent, '''；''', located at Unicode code point U+FF1B (fullwidth semicolon).
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| ===Programming===
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| In [[computer programming]], the semicolon is often used to separate multiple [[Statement (programming)|statements]] (for example, in [[Perl]], [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]], [[PL/I]], and [[SQL]]; see [[Pascal (programming language)#Semicolons as statement separators|Pascal: Semicolons as statement separators]]). In other languages, semicolons are called ''terminator''s<ref>{{cite web
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| | accessdate = 2011-07-29
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| | first = H.
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| | last = Mössenböck
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| | location = www.uni-linz.ac.at
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| | page = 34
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| | publisher = University of Linz, Austria
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| | title = Introduction to C# - The new language for Microsoft .NET
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| | type=subtitle: Statements
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| | quote = Empty statement: ; // ; is a ''terminator'', not a ''separator''
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| | url = http://ssw.jku.at/Teaching/Lectures/CSharp/Tutorial/Part1.pdf}}</ref> and are required after every statement (such as in [[Java (programming language)|Java]], and the [[C (programming language)|C]] family). The use of semicolons in control flow structures and blocks of code is varied – semicolons are generally omitted after a closing brace, but included for a single statement branch of a control structure (the "then" clause), except in Pascal, where a semicolon terminates the entire if…then…else clause (to avoid [[dangling else]]) and thus is not allowed between a "then" and the corresponding "else", as this causes unnesting.
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| This use originates with [[ALGOL 60]], and falls between the comma (,) – used as a list separator – and the period/full stop (.) – used to mark the end of the program. The semicolon, as a mark separating statements, corresponds to the ordinary English usage of separating independent clauses, and gives the entire program the gross syntax of a single ordinary sentence. Of these other characters, while commas have continued to be widely used in programming for lists (and rare other uses, such as the [[comma operator]] that separates expressions in C), the period as the end of the program has fallen out of use.
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| In some cases the distinction between a separate and a terminator is strong, such as early versions of Pascal, where a final semicolon yields a syntax error. In other cases a final semicolon is treated either as optional syntax, or as being followed by a null statement, which is either ignored or treated as a [[NOP]] (no operation or null command); compare [[trailing comma]]s in lists. In some cases a blank statement is allowed, allowing a sequence of semicolons or the use of a semicolon by itself as the body of a control flow structure. For example, a blank statement (a semicolon by itself) stands for a NOP in C/C++, which is useful in [[busy waiting]] [[synchronization]] loops.
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| Other languages (for instance, some [[assembly language]]s and [[Lisp (programming language)|LISP]] dialects, [[; (CONFIG.SYS directive)|CONFIG.SYS]] and [[INI file]]s) use semicolons to mark the beginning of [[comment (computer programming)|comment]]s.
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| Example [[C++]] code:
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| <source lang=Cpp>
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| int main(void)
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| {
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| int x, y;
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| x = 1; y = 2; // Two statements are separated by the semicolon
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| std::cout << x << std::endl;
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|
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| while (wait_event()) ;
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|
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| return 0;
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| }
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| </source>
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| Conventionally, in many languages, each statement is written on a separate line, but this is not typically a requirement of the language. In the above example, two statements are placed on the same line; this is legal, since the semicolon separates the two statements.
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| ===Data===
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| <!--- Use common sense - example lists should not be comprehensive and adding your pet language undermines the quality of the article --->
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| The semicolon is often used to separate elements of a string of text. For example, multiple e-mail addresses in the "To" field in some e-mail clients have to be [[Delimiter|delimited]] by a semicolon.
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| In [[Microsoft Excel]], the semicolon is used as a list separator, especially in cases where the decimal separator is a comma, such as <code> 0,32; 3,14; 4,50</code>, instead of <code>0.32, 3.14, 4.50</code>.
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| In [[MATLAB]] and [[GNU Octave]], the semicolon can be used as a row separator when defining a vector or matrix (whereas a comma separates the columns within a row of a vector or matrix) or to execute a command silently, without displaying the resulting output value in the console.
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| In [[HTML]], a semicolon is used to terminate a [[character entity reference]], either named or numeric.
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| In some variants of the [[comma-separated values]] file format, the semicolon is used as the separator character.
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| ===Other uses===
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| The semicolon is commonly used as parts of [[emoticons]], in order to indicate [[wink]]ing.
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| ==Mathematics==
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| In the argument list of a mathematical [[function (mathematics)|function]] <math>f(x_1, x_2, \dots; a_1, a_2, \dots)</math>, a semicolon may be used to separate [[variable (mathematics)|variables]] from [[parameter#Mathematical functions|parameters]].
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| In [[differential geometry]], a semicolon preceding an [[Indexed family|index]] is used to indicate the [[covariant derivative]] of a function with respect to the [[coordinate]] associated with that index.
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| ==References==
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| {{reflist}}
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| *{{cite book|last=Hacker|first=Diana |year=2002|title=The Bedford Handbook |edition=6th ed.|location=Boston|publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's|ISBN=0-312-41281-9}}
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| ==External links==
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| *[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/nyregion/18semicolon.html Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location] - New York Times, Feb. 18, 2008.
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| *[http://www.slate.com/id/2194087/ Has modern life killed the semicolon?] - [[Slate (magazine)|Slate]], June 20, 2008.
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| *[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/04/france.britishidentity The end of the line?] - The Guardian, April 4, 2008.
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| *[http://www.colonsemicolon.com/semicolon-use/ The Use of Semicolons in English]
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| *[http://www.colonsemicolon.com/semicolon-examples/ Examples of how to use the Semicolon]
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| [[Category:Punctuation]]
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