The inventor of the semicolon most likely didn’t envision emoticons, which use colons, hyphens, parentheses and semicolons to create winking, smiling and frowning faces. Although children and adults alike know what ;) and :-) mean, I’ll bet some are a bit fuzzy on how to use semicolons in sentences.

A semicolon visually combines a period and a comma; as far as utility, it comes between them. A period is an enforcer. It stops you cold. A comma is less severe. It lets you take a quick breath and then continue. When you mix the two together, though, shazam! A semicolon makes you stop and allows you to take a breath at the same time. A semicolon performs two main functions: It joins ideas together, and it allows readers to take a medium-sized pause, especially when commas are nearby. Let’s look at these three punctuation marks in more detail.