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My 2c is that if the majority of people are confused about the purpose of a punctuation mark or language feature in general, then that feature is not actually fulfilling a useful function. If it was actually useful then people wouldn't be confused, they would just be using it. People would learn it organically and not need it to be explained.

That example sentence would function exactly the same if it was separated by a period, nothing is gained by using a semicolon. No new information is added, you are just going to make people wonder why there is a semicolon there making the sentence less comprehensible.

Its sorta related to the prescriptivism vs descriptivism distinction.

They are also a great tool to use in place of tabs or spaces to make java developers lose their minds.

em dash supremacy—my friend introduced me to this and i haven't looked back since.

alt+0151 on PC, ctrl+alt+minus for word if I remember right. On mobile you go to more symbols, hold down the minus, and slide to the longest one.

Both require numeric keypad though- but using a minus and a space after can work as a substitute--as well as 2 minus signs (plus Lemmy happens to convert that to an em dash) - but like THAT? treason. absolutely not.

You can even join more than 2 independent clauses together as shown above.

They're also useful for separating multiple lists when using a comma would make it look like an item is an extended list.

So let's say I want to express:

"My contacts are:

• Jessica, Cook (as in a job title, not a name)

• James, MD (as in the professional certification, not the name 'MD')

• Doug, ABC (maybe to show that Doug works at ABC)"

If I said:

"My contacts are Jessica, Cook, James, MD, Doug, ABC."

There's no clear indication of what is a list member and what is a new list. But this:

"My contacts are Jessica, Cook; James, MD; Doug, ABC."

is a bit clearer. (There are probably better examples but I'm shooting from the hip here lol)

They can also be used as a super comma; because sometime you make a longer sentence, or a sentence with complex clauses.

DELIMITER //

SELECT name, definition

FROM definitions

WHERE name like ';'//

DELIMITER ;

I missed the bus; and that is something I will never ever ever do again

You people don't use semicolons; I am very surprised. For real though, I like to use the in German class, as it makes me seem fancy and knowledgeable.

Semicolons are my favorite punctuation; I love showing off.

is it then grammatically incorrect to use a full stop instead of a semicolon

There's an entire song dedicated to the usage (or incorrect usage) of it. https://youtu.be/M94ii6MVilw

I have been reading a lot of News Articles from the 1920s (project I'm working on) and it's really noticeable that they use ";" a lot more.