I found a little typo / The Grammar Lesson Thread.

As did you.
Twice.

Ahhh Whatever it’s pretty much the same thing :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Ah, whatever; it’s pretty much the same thing.

Replace the semicolon with a period and capitalize “it’s” if you prefer.

LOL

Thanks for the grammar lesson Greg. :smiley:

Hahah, I was just joining in the ganging up. :wink:

Real grammar lesson, though:

Not sure when to use a semicolon? There are two main ways to use it. The first is to separate a list of phrases in which the phrases themselves may contain commas. For example:

“He had three heroes: Bob, the guy who builds things; Frank, a mighty fixer of fences; Erik, the vicious Viking.”

The second is to join two complete but related thoughts together. The key to understanding this one is recognizing whether the two thoughts could also stand alone as complete sentences. For example:

“He wasn’t the most technically-accomplished thrower; he was the most interesting thrower.”

This could easily be two sentences and still work just fine. As another example of the same structure, the semicolon is commonly found in conjunction with the word “however”; however, when used this way the word “however” must be preceded by the semicolon and followed by a comma.

^ Yea I knew you were just joining in on the fun

But not this time.

Yea.

I should re-name this thread as ‘The grammar lesson thread’

You got the spelling correct, but your grammar was off. You missed the period. I agree with the thread name change.

That was the point. -_-

:smiley:

Commas and semicolons are pretty much interchangeable in English.

Edit: My wording was terrible, please disregard.

Afraid not. I can’t actually think of a single example in which you would use a semicolon instead of a comma. In most cases, swapping in a comma will produce a run-on sentence. For a list, you don’t use a semicolon as a delimiter unless the separated items themselves contain commas already.

Oops, meant when you can use a semicolon, you could use a comma.

I figured you meant both, so I already took that into account. In fact, I think that’s the majority of what my previous reply addressed. :wink: You cannot use a comma in place of a semicolon.

“I don’t usually like heavy yoyos, however, I do like the H5xChief.”

The above has a comma splice error. You would need a semicolon to correct it. You could alternatively break it into two sentences. I’m not saying you’re wrong just yet… but I would need to see an example illustrating interchangeable semicolon and comma before I believed you. :wink:

That party sucked, it was boring

That party sucked; it was boring

The semicolon is more correct, but the comma is still accepted.

The comma is not accepted in the first. That is a classic comma-splice error. You cannot join two complete thoughts with a comma.

“The party sucked. It was boring.” Since this division by period is perfectly acceptable, it’s a tip-off that you actually cannot use a comma. The semicolon is not just “more correct”, it is the only correct way to keep it all as one sentence.

1 Like

Wow Gregp yourr able to catch all the little details. Did you used to be a grammar teacher or something?

Something like that, yes. :wink: I have also been a book editor, copy writer and copy editor.

Oh cool.