Why Semicolons are Hard to Use (ft. Tom Scott)

Ever wonder how to use a semicolon? Ever sit in English class and wonder why there are so many rules about grammar and punctuation? In this video, Sabrina explores the origin of the semicolon and the evolution of English grammar.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

SOCIAL MEDIA
Sabrina
Melissa
Taha

CREDITS
Produced by Sabrina Cruz
Thank you to Hansen, Julián, Keslen, Melissa, Nicole, Peter, and Tom for talking to me about punctuation!

MUSIC

RECOMMENDED READING
Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark by Cecelia Watson

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Sabrina continues to be illiterate
01:43 im as surprised as you are that Tom Scott is here
03:25 Research Montage Baybeee
03:50 The Origin of the Semicolon
05:27 The Downfall of Punctuation
07:30 Why The Semicolon Got Unlucky
08:42 Sabrina would like to fight one (1) prescriptivist
09:17 What's the Point of Punctuation
12:05 Paying the Bills

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to the joke under the fold!
The past, present, and future walked into a bar... it was tense.
Leave a comment with the word TENSE to let me know you were here ;-)

[answerinprogress]

I hope you enjoyed that video. How do you feel about grammar rules and punctuation? Are you a Strident Defender or a Bringer of CHAOS?

[theJOAQOX]

The fact that Tom Scott is 50% sure about his use of the semi-colon leaves me with no hope regarding my personal use of it.

[kawaiidere]

Semicolons are easy to use; the most critical part is not caring about official grammar, but rather flow and readability

[flutterwind]

The tip is not to think hard about semicolons; it's to intuitively feel it.

[Tata-psgy]

Hi! Spanish speaker here. I wanted to emphasize that literacy is so extended that knowing what each punctuation sign means is more important than most vocabulary. The rules are not as important as the structure. "For example, " and "For example:" are two different structures. The first feels more like natural language while the second is more structured and it looks like there is a list after it or a very logical sentence.

I use semicolon when I want to say many facts in a line (I borrowed it from programming languages like Java or JS)

For example: Roses are red; Violets are blue; Wololo; Roses are too;

[carlosgomez]

I love that Tom (an actual linguist) gave himself the lowest confidence percentage.

[fabiant.]

It's funny how in most programming languages semicolon is the primary terminator (end of a line of code);
while period is a primary separator (namespaces, object-tree paths etc.).

[cbplayz]

I personally use semicolons a lot; as someone that gets off-track easily and always remembers an additional point mid sentence, I find that it makes extemporaneous writing more coherent than it is in my head.

[joshuakepfer]

As a writer, I've come to learn the sad general rule for semi-colons: don't use them. Most of the time they can be replaced by a comma or other punctuation. A trend that has been increasing for the last century is to use an em dash -- instead. However, I still use them when I can afford to, which is rare.

[indirasukmariana]

oh to be a humanist in the 15th century inventing punctuation left and right to confuse everyone else in the inevitable dystopian future

[ethanjohnstone]

"I think I do??" Tom you literally have a degree in words

[Christopher_Gibbons]

The purpose of punctuation is to eliminate structural ambiguity. While punctuation is most frequently used to impose a cadence, the semicolon is almost never used that way. It is almost exclusively used to conjoin elements of differing hierarchies. It is probably the least ambiguous of all the conjunctions. People are just confused because it's almost never used.

[star-stair]

I love the way we type stuff on the internet! It's so interesting because it's almost more expressive than saying things out loud at this point.

[le_scienceall]

I thought that the semicolon was supposed to precede a closing parenthesis ;)

[silvereaglexi]

When I saw the title I was like "semicolons are easy" then I started watching the video and I realised it wasn't about programming.

[nilk]

100% confident in my semicolon use at the end of almost every line of code I write in C. I think this video suggests that a video on the proper use of "fewer" vs "less" and "bring" vs "take" and "upload" vs "download" and similarly often confused words would be a successful video.. "you're probably not using these words correctly"

[questioner]

A question mark is a great argument for punctuation not being elitist. It allows you to abbreviate your questions without changing your meaning.

The text "coming back" has a completely different meaning than "coming back?", but without a question mark, it would have to be phrased "I am coming back" or "will you be coming back", respectively.

[davidwilliam]

The semicolon has two uses. 1. Instead of a full stop when you just can't bring yourself to let the previous sentence die a natural death. 2. When you don't know the first thing about punctuation but still feel there's some blackspace missing.

[LyricWulf]

Just put it at the end of every line, duh;

[panman]

In 5th grade, our teacher thought us the semi-colon; we all thought it looked so cool in our writing. We started using it everywhere: in our fiction writing, where we used it in every sentence; in our non-fiction writing, where we used it in every heading; and even in our maths, where in the “explain your answer” section, we used it religiously. The teacher started to get really agitated; our writing was now barely intelligible just so we could cram in as much semi-colons as possible. So she had to ban all semi-colons from our writing, tests, and even us talking or mentioning the semi-colon. Once we went into the next grade and we could use the semi-colon again, and since then, everyone can’t go a word without using one; that includes me writing this comment; oh.