5 ms·

The best line of that letter: Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it.

• Tloewald 13y ago
  If quoted verbatim, the semicolon is used incorrectly. It should be a comma.
  • shawndumas 13y ago
    what are the rules of semicolon/colon use?
    • Tloewald 13y ago
      Semicolons are used in two ways, to separate related independent clauses: "I entered the room; it stank." and as a kind of "super comma" when separating lists of items that themselves contain commas: spam; eggs and spam; spam, egg, sausage, and spam; and spam, spam, spam, eggs, and spam. The use here is the first case, and it's incorrect because (as another respondent has pointed out) the first clause is not independent (i.e. cannot stand on its own).
  • minikites 13y ago
    Looks correct to me; it joins two independent but topically related clauses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon#Usage
    • dmgd 13y ago
      "Not only am I unintimidated by litigation" doesn't make sense on its own, so I personally wouldn't use a semicolon here
      • minikites 13y ago
        That's true, my mistake.
    • pdxandi 13y ago
      I agree with @dmgd - the first clause is a fragment and doesn't sound correct.