Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a
time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and I run the Grammar Minute Instagram account. If you haven’t seen
it, you should – there are pictures of llamas there. I was on Instagram this afternoon, partly
because very few people on that app use semicolons.
There’s one particularly wrong way to use semicolons, and that is using them to separate items in
a list. I like chocolate milk, hot chocolate, and cocoa. Those items should be separated with
commas, NOT semicolons. The only time it’s acceptable to separate list items with a semicolon
is if the clauses themselves have commas in them. So, for example, I might say: “I like sweet
things, like chocolate and hot cocoa; salty things, like chips and guacamole; and hot things, like
tacos. Because each item in the list includes a comma, it’s OK to separate these with semicolons.
That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.