Study finds a 50% decline in the use of semicolons over the last two decades

https://theconversation.com/semicolons-are-becoming-increasingly-rare-their-disappearance-should-be-resisted-257019

by lr0 • 1 year ago

27 33 1 year ago

theconversation.com

sandra_vu• 1 year ago

with where we are heading, we might see the 90% drop in the use of –

dusted• 1 year ago

I think they forgot to include *.js *.ts *.c *.cpp *.java

pfdietz• 1 year ago

Commas, on the, other hand, are turning up, everywhere.

https://theonion.com/commas-turning-up-everywhere-1819569774...

derbOac2• 1 year ago

Periods too. Periods and commas are being used incorrectly in place of semicolons, ellipses, and em dashes.

treetalker• 1 year ago

Netizens frequently misuse question marks in place of periods to indicate surprise?

And what even do they use even after interrogatories for? What even is that?

dx41003• 1 year ago

I've seen people use them as a way to replace pauses in speech. I see it more with boomers / Gen-X.

example:

he isn't wrong... why do you think that ... it's a good thing

lapsis_beeftech• 1 year ago

The semicolon has always been the neglected underdog of punctuation; I try to sneak one in wherever I think I can get away with it.

Ozarkian• 1 year ago

I would like to disagree with you; however, your sentiment is based on sound grammar.

eimrine2• 1 year ago

I would like to say this about colons. Semicolons means the sentence is too hard, sometimes it will look easier with parentheses.

HKH2• 1 year ago

Comma splices are not an improvement.

eimrine2• 1 year ago

Well, in Russian language it is typical to use a lot of commas, because we don't have the requirement of queuing Subject + Verb as analytical languages do.

qgin• 1 year ago

The utility : pretentiousness ratio is too low.

adverbly• 1 year ago

Personally I have been using em dash(or some other kind of dash) for everything these days.

I know it's probably wrong, but I got the feeling that people won't roast me over a fire if I use it incorrectly.

ydlr• 1 year ago

Ms Dickinson, is that you?

dx41003• 1 year ago

Well, now that AI makes heavy use of it, I've been using it less. AI LOVES it.

phoe-krk• 1 year ago

It's certainly a crisis in the Lisp world; everyone seems to be writing fewer comments.

lemonwaterlime• 1 year ago

Outside of coding, I seldom use semicolons; however, they do have their uses in certain cases—when there are two complete thoughts in the sentence.

derbOac2• 1 year ago

The cited Guardian article is worth reading as well if you're interested; there's a usage quiz with it: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/18/marked-decli...

dowager_dan992• 1 year ago

I will miss the semicolon, but I'm more concerned about punctuation in general. If I punctuate a text message my teenage daughter will respond "are you mad at me"

BeFlatXIII• 1 year ago

I deliberately use punctuation to flex and intimidate others. Only those undaunted by the weird glyphs are worthy of my respect.

nunez3• 1 year ago

It's hard af to type on screen keyboards, especially with increasingly-wrong autocorrect keyboards.

ryao• 1 year ago

Whenever someone misuses the word mad, I think of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ao4WTcMtY8

Geste• 1 year ago

So I guess we are doing our part here ? Trying to sneak one semicolon for the count ? I'm not sure even when to even use them correctly. They always fall flat or make sound pretentious; both of which I try to avoid.

DaSHacka2• 1 year ago

I'm more curious about the usage of em/en dash, most people in my life had no idea it existed.

I myself only discovered them for the first time when reading a punctuation site to ensure I was using semicolons grammatically correctly.

nunez3• 1 year ago

I always used three hyphens in place of the emdash; easier to type.

DaSHacka2• 1 year ago

Some of my acquaintances were doing the same, but unintentionally.

I had also thought news articles and the like were using regular hyphens that were extended due to some weird font.

saurik• 1 year ago

While I've seen it in tooling like markdown--with two being an endash--that's very very wide... I am very sure the convention has always been to use two hyphens for an mdash (which is even easier to type! ;P).

dx41003• 1 year ago

I've been using double hyphens (which auto-corrects to emdash now) for as long as I can remember. Now that it's a marker of AI, I find myself removing it whenever I reply to comments.

nunez3• 1 year ago

The semicolon was always a confusing symbol; it makes even less sense in typical text-style conversations on phones. you can use a period in its place most of the time.

AceyMan• 1 year ago

"I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow." — Abraham Lincoln

vonnik• 1 year ago

The crazy thing about semicolons is that they were once common in books intended for young adults/middle readers. See E. Nesbit and co. When I read the childrens' authors of early 20C Britain, I often think their writing is more demanding that books marketed to today's adults.

southernplaces7• 1 year ago

Good riddance. I'll go with what Vonnegut said on them.

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”

Study finds a 50% decline in the use of semicolons over the last two decades

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