The age-old semicolon is dying out as Britons admit to never or rarely using the punctuation mark. In English-written 19th century literature it appeared once in every 205 words, but today it is down ...

It is a piece of punctuation that has divided writers and authors for centuries. Novelists including Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen have not shied away from using them, but that has not stopped ...

Semicolon use is down, and its slide is making headlines. In the U.S., these punctuation marks are appearing in published books about half as often as they did 25 years ago. The same trend can be seen ...

When you’re learning to type, the first lesson is the home-row position — the keys where your fingers rest: a s d f j k l ;. Learning this, you might naturally assume that the semicolon is pretty ...

Editor’s note: This segment was rebroadcast on Jan. 2, 2026. Click here for that audio. The semicolon has been described as a “graceful pause” in writing. But this graceful punctuation mark is being ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Illustrations by It's divisive; it cleaves; it drives some people crazy. The writer Kurt Vonnegut said of the semicolon: It's ...

Do you know how to use a semicolon correctly? Even if you think you do, are you sure? That odd cross between a colon and a comma may be the most frequently misused and misunderstood punctuation mark ...

The semicolon does not draw a sentence to a close. It holds its breath, waiting for the next clause to continue the message of the first. In the same way, the semicolon is not dead; it merely waits ...

The semicolon has been described as a “graceful pause” in writing. But this graceful punctuation mark is being forgotten. Mark Lasswell wrote a recent piece on the semicolon and why it’s fading away ...