The age-old semicolon is dying out as Britons admit to never or rarely using the punctuation mark, a study has found.
In 19th century English literature it appeared once in every 205 words, but today it is down to one in every 390 words.
The survey found that 67 per cent of British students never or rarely used a semicolon and only 11 per cent of respondents described themselves as frequent users.
In addition, more than half of respondents did not know or understand how to use the punctuation marl correctly.
A semicolons use is to connect two parts of a sentence where a conjunction is omitted, such as ‘The cat sat on the mat; the mice watched from behind the sofa’.
It should be used between two main clauses that balance each other—or contradict each other—but are too closely linked to be written as separate sentences.
The MailOnline style guide advises it is mainly used in lists (eg ‘The band’s unusual backstage requests included: only green M&Ms; waitresses dressed as Stormtroopers; and a retired astronaut’). The last item is preceded by a semicolon and has the word ‘and’ at the beginning.
Lisa McLendon authored the research and wrote an entire book dedicated to the punctuation: Semicolon: How a Misunderstood Punctuation Mark Can Improve Your Writing, Enrich Your Reading and Even Change Your Life.
The age-old semicolon (above) is dying out as Britons admit to never or rarely using the punctuation mark, a study has found
Esteemed 20th century feminist author Virginia Woolf famously opened her modern classic Mrs Dalloway with a plethora of the punctuation marks
While American author Kurt Vonnegut has called to abolish the punctuation mark: ‘If you really want to hurt your parents…the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons’
She said: ‘The semicolon is a place where our anxieties and our aspirations about language, class and education are concentrated.
‘In this small mark, big ideas are distilled down to a few winking drops of ink.’
Esteemed 20th century feminist author Virginia Woolf famously opened her modern classic Mrs Dalloway with a plethora of semicolons.
American author Kurt Vonnegut has called to abolish the punctuation mark: ‘If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons.
‘They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.’
The semicolon originated in Venice in 1494, invented by the printer and publisher Aldus Manutius.
It was designed as a hybrid punctuation mark to combine elements of a comma and a colon in order to to represent a pause that fell between the length of a comma and a colon.
