this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2025
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[โ€“] argon 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Basically you use them at points where you'd usually put a period, but you don't want to add as much of a pause.

ETA:

For example

My wife said she would like tea; coffee would have been my choice.

could also be written as

My wife said she would like tea. Coffee would have been my choice.

but it wouldn't sound as nice.

While that may be true, you also put them in places that should have a comma, but you want more pause; this is why boiling it down to a single aphorism is difficult.

For example, I've read most of the comments in this thread, as well as the Oatmeal info-comic that someone linked, and I still don't know with certainty the semicolon I used above is grammatically appropriate.