Use of semicolon in decline
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Regular user here. I'm not giving them up!
“Do not use semicolons,” wrote Kurt Vonnegut, who averaged fewer than 30 a novel (about one every 10 pages). “All they do is show you’ve been to college.”
A study suggests UK authors are taking Vonnegut’s advice to heart; the semicolon seems to be in terminal decline, with its usage in English books plummeting by almost half in two decades – from one appearing in every 205 words in 2000 to one use in every 390 words today.
Further research by Lisa McLendon, author of The Perfect English Grammar Workbook, found 67% of British students never or rarely use the semicolon. Just 11% of respondents described themselves as frequent users.
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I like semicolons.
A study suggests UK authors are taking Vonnegut’s advice to heart**;** the semicolon seems to be in terminal decline, with its usage in English books plummeting by almost half in two decades – from one appearing in every 205 words in 2000 to one use in every 390 words today.
I like the little dig.
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Popular computer programming languages like C/C++, Java, JavaScript all require semicolons in that they use semicolons to terminate statements.
Yet in the enterprise space, COBOL and VisualBasic do not require semicolons.
SWIFT, the preferred language for all things Apple these days, also does not require semicolons.
In the server application space, Ruby and Python also don't require semicolons.
When you get to the data science space, SQL and R again use semicolons to terminate statements.
Then there are some odd balls like Go that does not require semicolons in the source code, but the lexer automatically insert semicolons before the code gets compiled.
The use of semicolons among programmers rise and fall depending on which types or applications, and consequently which programming languages, are in demand in any given era.
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You can have my semicolons when you pry them out of my cold, dead keyboard.
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I got 8/10 but I really think this sentence is fine as it is: "To bolster their language skills, six students went to Berlin, four went to Barcelona to do an internship."
@Bernard you would need a conjunction like "and" or "but" before "four" for that sentence to be grammatically correct without a semicolon.
--Rustyfingers, who is admittedly an annoying grammar geek
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So what do they do? Make two sentences instead of one? Or just use commas?
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You can have my semicolons when you pry them out of my cold, dead keyboard.
@rustyfingers said in Use of semicolon in decline:
You can have my semicolons when you pry them out of my cold, dead keyboard.
Pretty much.
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@Daniel. said in Use of semicolon in decline:
They divide two parts into separate sentences. Commas divide sentences into clauses.
Actually, what I meant by “they” was: what do people do instead of using semicolons?
