question: How and when do I use a semicolon?
comment: Use a semicolon to join two clauses in a sentence if they are related. See the top voted answer here URL_0 Talking about the apple mac monitor stand; it seems to be a waste of money. Those two ideas would not be correct sentences on their own.
passages: In Microsoft Excel, the semicolon is used as a list separator, especially in cases where the decimal separator is a comma, such as codice_2, instead of codice_3.
  
  In MATLAB and GNU Octave, the semicolon can be used as a row separator when defining a vector or matrix (whereas a comma separates the columns within a row of a vector or matrix) or to execute a command silently, without displaying the resulting output value in the console.
  
  In HTML, a semicolon is used to terminate a character entity reference, either named or numeric.
   Project Semicolon was echoed when actress Selena Gomez tattooed a semicolon onto her wrist to commemorate the premiere of "13 Reasons Why", a Netflix series in which she served as co-executive producer. Accordingly, the show's casts Alisha Boe and Tommy Dorfman have also tattooed the punctuation mark onto their wrists in commemoration of the suicide-themed drama series released in early April 2017.
   The first printed semicolon was the work of the Italian printer Aldus Manutius the Elder in 1494. Manutius established the practice of using the semicolon to separate words of opposed meaning and to allow a rapid change in direction in connecting interdependent statements. Ben Jonson was the first notable English writer to use the semicolon systematically. The modern uses of the semicolon relate either to the listing of items or to the linking of related clauses.
  
  Section::::English.
   APL uses semicolons to separate declarations of local variables, and to separate axes when indexing multi-dimensional arrays, for example codice_1.
  
  Other languages (for instance, some assembly languages and LISP dialects, CONFIG.SYS and INI files) use semicolons to mark the beginning of comments.
  
  Example C code:
  
  int main() {
   BULLET::::- Example: "Your sister did not get high marks; because she didn't study". (), ()
  
  Section::::Other languages.:Greek, Church Slavonic.
  
  In Greek and Church Slavonic, a semicolon indicates a question, similar to a Latin question mark. To indicate a long pause or separate sections, each with commas (the semicolon's purpose in English), Greek uses, but extremely rarely, the "άνω τελεία", an interpunct ( · ).
  
  Church Slavonic example: гдѣ єсть рождeйсѧ царь їудeйскій; (Where is the one who is born king of the Jews? - Matthew 2:1)
  
  Section::::Other languages.:French.
   BULLET::::2. When two or more semicolons are used within a single construction, all constituents are at the same level, unlike commas, which can separate, for example, subordinate clauses from main clauses.
  
  Section::::English.:Usage.
   Conventionally, in many languages, each statement is written on a separate line, but this is not typically a requirement of the language. In the above example, two statements are placed on the same line; this is legal, because the semicolon separates the two statements. Thus programming languages like Java, the C family, Javascript etc. use semicolons to obtain a proper structure in the respective languages.
  
  Section::::Computing usage.:Data.
  
  The semicolon is often used to separate elements of a string of text. For example, multiple e-mail addresses in the "To" field in some e-mail clients have to be delimited by a semicolon.
   Semicolon
  
  The semicolon or semi-colon (;) is a punctuation mark that separates major sentence elements. A "semicolon" can be used between two closely related independent clauses, provided they are not already joined by a coordinating conjunction. Semicolons can also be used in place of commas to separate the items in a list, particularly when the elements of that list contain commas.
  
  Section::::History.
   The semicolon is used to separate two independent but related clauses: "My wife would like tea; I would prefer coffee." The semicolon is also used to separate list items when the list items contain commas: ""She saw three men: Jamie, who came from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man.""
  
  Section::::Usage of different punctuation marks or symbols.:Slash.
  
  The slash or stroke or solidus is often used to indicate alternatives, such as ""his/her"", or two equivalent meanings or spellings, such as ""grey/gray"". The slash is used in certain set phrases, such as the conjunction ""and/or"".
   Semicolons are optional in a number of languages, including BCPL, Eiffel, and Go, meaning that they are part of the formal grammar for the language, but can be inferred in many or all contexts (e.g. by end of line that ends a statement (in Go)). As languages can be designed without them, semicolons are considered an unnecessary nuisance by some.
   BULLET::::- ""Is this your book?" she asked; "I found it on the floor.""
  
  Section::::Other languages.
  
  Section::::Other languages.:Arabic.
  
  In Arabic, the semicolon is called "Fasila Manqoota" () which means literally "a dotted comma", and is written inverted ( ؛ ). In Arabic, the semicolon has several uses:
  
  BULLET::::- It can be used between two phrases, in which the first phrase causes the second.
  
  BULLET::::- Example: "He played much; so, his clothes became dirty". (), ()
  
  BULLET::::- It can be used between two phrases, where the second is "a reason" for the first.
   Although terminal marks (i.e. full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks) mark the end of a sentence, the comma, semicolon and colon are normally sentence-internal, making them secondary boundary marks. The semicolon falls between terminal marks and the comma; its strength is equal to that of the colon.
  
  Section::::English.:Constraints.
  
  BULLET::::1. When a semicolon marks the left boundary of a constituent (e.g., the beginning of a clause or a phrase), the right boundary is marked by punctuation of equal or greater strength.
   BULLET::::- - Small Form Variants are for compatibility with Chinese National Standard CNS 11643
  
  BULLET::::- - used in the APL programming language
  
  BULLET::::- - "indicates sudden glottal closure"
  
  BULLET::::- - deprecated tags block
  
  Related characters:
  
  Section::::Computing usage.
  
  Section::::Computing usage.:Programming.
   Many languages use the semicolon as a statement terminator. Most often this is mandatory, but in some languages the semicolon is optional in many contexts. This is mainly done at the lexer level, where the lexer outputs a semicolon into the token stream, despite one not being present in the input character stream, and is termed "semicolon insertion" or "automatic semicolon insertion". In these cases, semicolons are part of the formal phrase grammar of the language, but may not be found in input text, as they can be inserted by the lexer. Optional semicolons or other terminators or separators are also sometimes handled at the parser level, notably in the case of trailing commas or semicolons.
   Semicolons are followed by a lower case letter, unless that letter would ordinarily be capitalized mid-sentence (e.g., the word "I", acronyms/initialisms, or proper nouns). Modern style guides recommend no space before them and one space after. They also typically recommend placing semicolons outside ending quotation marks, although this was not always the case. For example, the first edition of the "Chicago Manual of Style" (1906) recommended placing the semicolon inside ending quotation marks.
  
  Applications of the semicolon in English include:
   A tricolon that comprises parts in increasing size, magnitude or intensity is called a "tricolon crescens", or an ascending tricolon. Tricolon can sometimes be a hendiatris.
  
  Similarly, tricolon that comprises parts that decrease in size, magnitude, intensity, or word length is called a "tricolon diminuens", or a descending tricolon.
   The original 1918 edition of "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. advises using a semicolon, not a comma, to join two grammatically complete clauses, except when the clauses are "very short" and "similar in form", for example:
   In some cases the distinction between a separator and a terminator is strong, such as early versions of Pascal, where a final semicolon yields a syntax error. In other cases a final semicolon is treated either as optional syntax, or as being followed by a null statement, which is either ignored or treated as a NOP (no operation or null command); compare trailing commas in lists. In some cases a blank statement is allowed, allowing a sequence of semicolons or the use of a semicolon by itself as the body of a control flow structure. For example, a blank statement (a semicolon by itself) stands for a NOP in C/C++, which is useful in busy waiting synchronization loops.
   BULLET::::- Between closely related independent clauses not conjoined with a coordinating conjunction, when the two clauses are balanced, opposed or contradictory:
  
  BULLET::::- "My wife would like tea; I would prefer coffee."
  
  BULLET::::- "I went to the basketball court; I was told it was closed for cleaning."
  
  BULLET::::- "I told Kate she's running for the hills; I wonder if she knew I was joking."
  
  BULLET::::- When a comma replaces a period (full stop) in a quotation, or when a quotation otherwise links two independent sentences:
  
  BULLET::::- ""I have no use for this," he said; "you are welcome to it.""
   Semicolon insertion is a feature of BCPL and its distant descendant Go, though it is absent in B or C. Semicolon insertion is present in JavaScript, though the rules are somewhat complex and much-criticized; to avoid bugs, some recommend always using semicolons, while others use initial semicolons, termed defensive semicolons, at the start of potentially ambiguous statements.
   An example of bicolon is the advertising slogan "buy one, get one free" (you pay for one item but you get another free).
  
  In Biblical poetry it is standard to see a pair of adjacent lines of poetry in which the second echoes the meaning of the first. This can be considered a bicolon. For example:
  
  BULLET::::1. "When Israel went out of Egypt, * the house of Jacob from a barbarous people:"
  
  BULLET::::2. "Judea made his sanctuary, * Israel his dominion."
  
  BULLET::::3. "The sea saw and fled: * Jordan was turned back."
   In computer programming, the semicolon is often used to separate multiple statements (for example, in Perl, Pascal, PL/I, and SQL; see Pascal: Semicolons as statement separators). In other languages, semicolons are called "terminator"s and are required after every statement (such as in Java, and the C family). Today semicolons as terminators has largely won out, but this was a divisive issue in programming languages from the 1960s into the 1980s. An influential and frequently-cited study in this debate was , which concluded strongly in favor of semicolon as a terminator:
   BULLET::::- Colon or clause is when a series of up to three brief but complete clauses are strung together to communicate an entire thought; it is called isocolon when the clauses have an equal number of syllables.
  
  BULLET::::- Similar to this is the comma or phrase, where single words are split up in a sentence to give it a halting, staccato sound.
  
  Both these figures create emphasis on the independent words or clauses within the entire thought; Period is the opposite, in which words in a sentence are close-packed and uninterrupted to form a complete thought.
   BULLET::::- Between items in a series or listing containing internal punctuation, especially parenthetic commas, where the semicolons function as serial commas:
  
  BULLET::::- "The people present were Jamie, a man from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man with no friends."
  
  BULLET::::- "Several fast food restaurants can be found within the following cities: London, England; Paris, France; Dublin, Ireland; Madrid, Spain."
  
  BULLET::::- "Here are three examples of familiar sequences: one, two, and three; a, b, and c; first, second, and third."
  
  BULLET::::- "(Fig. 8; see also plates in Harley 1941, 1950; Schwab 1947)."
   Initial semicolons are also sometimes used at the start of JavaScript libraries, in case they are appended to another library that omits a trailing semicolon, as this can result in ambiguity of the initial statement.
  