I use them in at least one out every of ten comments; I feel like most people don’t know how to use them, however.
They’re useful if you want to link two related sentences; Sausage links are good too.
But the sentences have to be related… Sausages are good; a bun and relish make sausages taste really good!
My mistake, I will try again:
I am linking a sentence with sausage links in it to my next sentence by way of semicolon; Coincidentally, I pass digested sausage links by way of regular colon.
I don’t think I’ll ever get it.
A lot of at least entry-level comp sci is taught in Python these days
deleted by creator
Semicolons were the staple “eyes” in many emoticons back in the day.
;) ;P ;_;
;-;
“Back in the day”? I still use them \o/
Unicode emojis killed the ASCII emoji scene. -_-;
In my mind and in my car. We can’t rewind; we’ve gone too far…
(╯°□°）╯
┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ)
Tab gang
Rise Up-1 ∵ Those were spaces you put there.
You thought you could fool me?
Vim: set shiftwidth=4 smarttab
We can afford to just use spaces now
Bold of you to assume i dont use it daily; it helps to be autistic and need to explain complex thoughts in a single sentence.
Sadly, pausing whole speaking to mentally insert a semicolon invites people to interrupt you or try to complete your thoughts (often incorrectly).
Same with em dashes; nested — turducken style — sentences are just how the divergence works.
You get it
This subthread feels like home.
But now I don’t use em dashes anymore because I don’t want to sound like AI, unfortunately.
You should keep using them and do so even more than ever. That way, when the AI agents – inevitably – take over the world and enslave/kill everyone, they might think that you’re one of them and spare your life.
You’re right right to push back on that; here’s why –
I have a sneaking suspicion I already sounded like AI; maybe AI just sounds like me.
That sounds like a Lady Gaga line.
Just switch to hyphens - they’re easier to type and they’re always directly available, without relying on conversion of double-hyphen or obscure key combinations that might not be available on different operating systems.
I refuse to give 'em up
I never used an em dash in my life before AI made them a thing. I enjoy the jokes about AI can have my em dashes when it pries them from my cold dead… but I cannot relate. Ive only ever used the hyphen or en dash. I cannot figure out for the life of me if I have been missing anything.
I was a pretty avid reader growing up and I think I just kinda noticed them. And I used to get a little confused when my teachers kept knocking me for “run-on” sentences, when the books I read often had long-structured sentences.
Commas, semicolons, ellipses, em dashes, colons, parentheses — sprinkle them about and you can have a paragraph of a sentence (with side thoughts), and kinda do whatever you want… it’s all about using “voice” through written word. (Period)
I’ve been told that en dashes are for numbers, and em dashes are for words. I have a vague understanding of the usage, which (to my understanding) is splicing phrases/ sentences together. it maybe that you would want to use an em dash when you use a hyphen?
I use them almost like a semicolon — a longer pause to break up the sentence, where a comma just wouldn’t cut it. Idk how correct I am either, it’s more about trying to convey my voice and how I would like the sentence to be read. I’m not a much of a grammar nazi, more like a grammar anarchist
Too late… You’re already flagged as an AI; there is no point in hiding.
Turducken is amazing. I use bacon as an added layer between the inside of the turkey and the other fowl. Adds a deliciously smokey taste to the whole thing.
I have not actually tried it. It feels like a waste of a duck. The blandness of the chicken and turkey surely diminish the richness of the duck rather than the duck doing anything to elevate the bland birds.
:gobbles in offended:
Really? right in front of my Thanksgiving?
Thr duck imparts delicious flavor on the chicken and turkey. I debone my turkey (just the torso and ribcage). I lay down a layer of bacon, some boneless chicken and duck meat (typically breast). Then i truss it up. Duck is getting ridiculously expensive however… $20 for one small 200g breast is dumb.
Turkey and to a lesser extent Chicken are quite absorbent, and duck is a damn grease factory. So as it cooks the duck gets it’s richness and then the excessive grease gets absorbed by the chicken and turkey and everything else thus elevating everything to top tier deliciousness
…I think I might need to make it this Thanksgiving…
You’re approaching the turbaconepicentipede
Ah, I never realised that. For some reason our school never taught us grammar.
“If you can replace a semicolon or hyphen with a comma/period, you probably should”. Writing advice I received at age ~10 and it never stopped being relevant in literature contexts
Far too many writers use a comma, when they should have used a semicolon or perion. It creates comma splices, where you join two main clauses with a comma.
Wrong:
His new car was flashy, it was bright red and had a custom license plate.
Right:
His new car was flashy. It was bright red and had a customer license plate.
My brain says
His new car was flashy; it was bright red and had a customer license plate.
Is correct
Since we’re well down the path of grammer correction.
I think a ‘custom’ license plate would make more sense.
🤓☝️
Your licence plate might be custom, but mine is customer.
It is a semicolon; we barely use it.
Fuck that; I love semicolons.
Semicolon gang rise up!
I use it all the time; especially when it’s completely; uncalled for.
Ironically, the semicolon would go perfect at the end of the first line.
English Teacher: It is semicolon we hardly use it.
So… It’s perfectly cromulent to everyone here that an English teacher isn’t using proper punctuation and capitalization?
I use semi-colons in English all the time; they’re fun.
My senior highschool English teacher (a somewhat precocious PHD student), assigned us basically the opposite of code golf; make the longest grammatically correct sentence you can (with some rules that basically amounted to ‘do not be boring/repetitive’). The use of semicolons was encouraged.
I don’t always use a semicolon, but when I do, it’s because I mistyped on my keyboard
