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 ...

Love or detest it, the semicolon is the most divisive punctuation mark of the modern era. Should we even care? The History Of The Semicolon (And ... How To Use It) With Meghna Chakrabarti Love or ...

As punctuation marks go, the semicolon is often misunderstood and people may use it with hesitation. But according to Project Semicolon, a nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention, the symbol has a ...

Reading good prose should be like listening to a well-constructed piece of music: it should have rhythm; it should have cadences; in short, it should have style. In that sentence I have used the four ...

A recent study has found a 50% decline in the use of semicolons over the last two decades. The decline accelerates a longterm trend: In 1781, British literature featured a semicolon roughly every 90 ...

It's divisive; it cleaves; it drives some people crazy. The writer Kurt Vonnegut said of the semicolon: It's showy; it's chiefly used to show you've been to college. More than two-thirds of young ...