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My favourite use of the semicolon is in its function as a "supercomma". It just makes sense. E.g. "We were joined by three families: John, his wife, Mary, and
by tpoacher 5y ago
My favourite use of the semicolon is in its function as a "supercomma". It just makes sense.
E.g.
"We were joined by three families: John, his wife, Mary, and their son, George; the Middletons; and our neighbours, Jim and Sally from next door."
Alas, whenever I use it, invariably someone who's never seen it used this way will simply have a tantrum until I completely rewrite the whole thing in the most tedious way possible; it's almost not worth using it, for this reason alone.
- minimilian 5y ago> supercomma duplocomma
- denton-scratch 5y agoAs a supercomma, a semicolon is necesssary as a list-separator, if you have list-items with embedded commas. Your "three families" example is spot-on. I wouldn't know how to rewrite it, without using some Powerpoint-derived notation, such as bullet-lists, which just isn't conversational.