The Semicolon: A Completely Unnecessary Necessity

 

Ah, the semicolon; the punctuation mark that shows up like a dinner guest who wasn’t technically invited but brought a really good bottle of wine. You don’t know where to seat it, but you also don’t want it to feel bad. After all, it’s trying its best to be useful.

Nobody really knows what to do with a semicolon. You’ve probably seen one; you’ve probably even used one … accidentally, while reaching for the comma. But ask ten writers why they used it, and you’ll get ten versions of “It felt right.” Which is code for “I panicked.”

The Case for Team Semicolon

In theory, the semicolon is a workhorse of nuance. It connects two closely related thoughts, thoughts that deserve more intimacy than a period allows, but less clinginess than a comma demands.

Example:

I have a big presentation tomorrow; I need to prepare my notes tonight.

It’s the punctuation equivalent of saying, “These two ideas are dating, but not ready to move in together.”

The semicolon also plays well with fancy words like however, moreover, and nevertheless. When you see one of those in the wild, the semicolon often lurks nearby, like a proud punctuation parent:

I was going to skip the party; however, free tacos changed my mind.

And when lists get messy, like that time your aunt tried to describe her “simple” potato salad recipe in a single sentence, the semicolon steps in to sort out the chaos:

The picnic included sandwiches with ham, turkey, and cheese; chips, both regular and barbecue; and a cooler full of questionable lemonade.

See? It’s the Marie Kondo of punctuation. Everything suddenly sparks clarity.

The Case for Team “Why Bother?”

But here’s the thing: no one needs a semicolon. You can live a long, full, grammatically respectable life without ever touching one. Commas and periods already do 99% of the heavy lifting. The semicolon, meanwhile, just sits there in the middle of your keyboard, smirking like it’s part of an exclusive club.

People think using semicolons makes their writing sophisticated. Maybe it does. But it can also make your sentence look like it’s trying too hard, like a guy at a poetry slam wearing sunglasses indoors.

And if you use them too often? Congratulations, your prose now sounds like a Victorian telegram. Stop.

The Beautiful Contradiction

So what’s the verdict? The semicolon is both utterly unnecessary and undeniably elegant. It’s the punctuation world’s middle child: overlooked, slightly dramatic, but secretly brilliant. It asks us to slow down, to think about the relationship between ideas, to linger in the space between this and that.

Good writing lives in that space. Which means, like it or not, we probably need the semicolon, if only to remind us that language isn’t just about what we say; it’s about how we connect the dots.

Use it sparingly. Use it bravely. And for heaven’s sake, don’t use it to look smart.

That’s what em-dashes are for.