The New York Times Magazine – “There are very few opportunities in life to have it both ways; semicolons are the rare instance in which you can; there is absolutely no downside…I don’t remember when I first learned about semicolons, nor do I have a mental list of remarkable semicolons in literature. I don’t want to have to treasure them, though the typical advice for writers of all levels is to use them sparingly, as if there’s a limited supply. This only breeds fear, which in turn breeds stigma: Semicolons are ugly, pretentious and unnecessary; they immaturely try to have it both ways. There are so many things to fear in life, but punctuation is not one of them. That semicolons, unlike most other punctuation marks, are fully optional and relatively unusual lends them power; when you use one, you are doing something purposefully, by choice, at a time when motivations are vague and intentions often denied. And there are very few opportunities in life to have it both ways; semicolons are the rare instance in which you can; there is absolutely no downside. For those who don’t know the rules — and I don’t blame you! — a semicolon does what it says on the box. Isn’t that nice? It’s a period on top of a comma, and it works like both a period and a comma. You can use it to separate two independent clauses — two sentences that work on their own — or to separate items in a series that would be particularly unwieldy with only commas, often because the items contain commas. (“Today I ate three desserts: a tiny cookie, which was free with my espresso; a bigger cookie, which was unfortunately a little dry; and a milkshake, which maybe took things too far.”) ..”