There are a lot of things you should be afraid of—vaccines, chemtrails spreading airborne vaccines, malfunctioning Katy Perrybots—but there’s no need to be scared of using a semicolon (unless you’re using one in a 5G text—then you might as well just give yourself COVID). To show a mastery of this mysterious piece of punctuation is to join the likes of writers at the New Yorker, Nobel laureates, and the elite who make up the world’s secret societies such as Yale’s Skull and Bones Society or Harvard’s Pelvis and Ligaments Club. Please read on, as I’ve prepared clear explanations on when and why to use this enigmatic symbol.
Connecting Two Independent Clauses
The first use of a semicolon is to connect two closely related independent clauses without using a coordinating conjunction. As stated in The Little Book of American Grammar, “A clause is a group of words containing both a subject and a verb.” An independent clause is such a group of words that can stand alone as a complete sentence (disclaimer: this author has it on good authority that The Little Book of American Grammar is partly DNC propaganda; as such, ignore anything to do with pronouns).
Examples of independent clauses include:
- A certain president put out a hit on Marilyn Monroe.
- Nobody found her body.
- Harvey Oswald dated a mystery blonde.
- Revenge is sweet.
When two or more independent clauses are very closely related, you want to use a semicolon to connect them:
- The Titanic hit an iceberg; iceberg collisions pay out handsomely on insurance claims.
- Boris Johnson insisted the British put more “fluoride” in the water supply; the queen was seen guzzling tap water shortly before her death.
- Amazon Web Services develops a lot of cutting-edge technology; their last project was developing the Bitcoin-funded matrix we all live in.
- The United States has an enormous debt crisis; Obama invested all our taxes in Dogecoin.
Connecting Clauses Joined by Conjunctive Adverbs
When you have two independent clauses connected by a conjunctive adverb (however, furthermore, hence, etc.) or a common transitional phrase (after this, in addition, as a result, etc.), you must use a semicolon before the conjunctive adverb or transition:
- Humans did not evolve from apes; apes were selectively bred from short, hairy Democrats.
- Disney was tired of people googling to see whether Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen; subsequently, Disney released a hit movie titled Frozen; after this, Google searches were diverted.
- Princess Diana died at the height of her fame; indeed, a very much alive Marilyn Monroe killed her as she was becoming a more iconic blonde.
Separating Items in a Serial List
The final use of a semicolon is to replace a comma when separating items in a list that are either particularly long or contain internal punctuation:
- On our honeymoon, we visited several American cities and towns with rich histories, such as Boston, Massachusetts; Washington, DC; and the moon landing site in Nevada.
- Presenters at this year’s Academy Awards include Margot Robbie, star of The Wolf of Wall Street; Harrison Ford, star of Indiana Jones; and Tom Hanks, manufacturer of COVID and acid reflux.
- There are many things the government is trying to put into your body: the COVID vaccine contains excess iron, which makes everyone magnetic so they can be shepherded like sheeple; fluoride in the water is turning the frogs gay, which is lowering the frog procreation rate—forcing owls to feed on humans instead of frogs; and chemtrails cause acid rain that soaks into our skin and then our stomachs, which makes us buy more TUMs—Big Pharma.
So that’s how semicolons are used today. What many people don’t know is that the semicolon was originally invented as a way for the Illuminati to let others know who they were—because, you know, at meetings they all wear masks like a whole Eyes Wide Shut kinda thing. When writing letters to important people, they’d punctuate their sentences with semicolons. That’s how they identified themselves. But then Shakespeare—a well-known member of the Illuminati—started using it in his plays and poems just to show off what an elite dickhead he was. But none of the public had any clue what the semicolon was for; all they knew was that a famous writer was using it. So they started using it, too, sort of randomly. They didn’t realize that it was simply meant to be a symbol. You see, the dot at the top represents the all-seeing eye—that’s the Illuminati—and the comma at the bottom represents us—get it? Comma—sounds like coma because the rest of us are essentially in one. But don’t quote me on this; I haven’t verified it—this could just be what THEY want you to think.