Study finds a 50% decline in the use of semicolons over the last two decades

The crazy thing about semicolons is that they were once common in books intended for young adults/middle readers. See E. Nesbit and co. When I read the childrens' authors of early 20C Britain, I often think their writing is more demanding that books marketed to today's adults.

The semicolon has always been the neglected underdog of punctuation; I try to sneak one in wherever I think I can get away with it.

Good riddance. I'll go with what Vonnegut said on them.

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”

It's certainly a crisis in the Lisp world; everyone seems to be writing fewer comments.

Outside of coding, I seldom use semicolons; however, they do have their uses in certain cases—when there are two complete thoughts in the sentence.

The cited Guardian article is worth reading as well if you're interested; there's a usage quiz with it: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/18/marked-decli...

"I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow." — Abraham Lincoln

I'm more curious about the usage of em/en dash, most people in my life had no idea it existed.

I myself only discovered them for the first time when reading a punctuation site to ensure I was using semicolons grammatically correctly.

Personally I have been using em dash(or some other kind of dash) for everything these days.

I know it's probably wrong, but I got the feeling that people won't roast me over a fire if I use it incorrectly.

I think they forgot to include *.js *.ts *.c *.cpp *.java

with where we are heading, we might see the 90% drop in the use of –

So I guess we are doing our part here ? Trying to sneak one semicolon for the count ? I'm not sure even when to even use them correctly. They always fall flat or make sound pretentious; both of which I try to avoid.

The semicolon was always a confusing symbol; it makes even less sense in typical text-style conversations on phones. you can use a period in its place most of the time.

I will miss the semicolon, but I'm more concerned about punctuation in general. If I punctuate a text message my teenage daughter will respond "are you mad at me"

I would like to say this about colons. Semicolons means the sentence is too hard, sometimes it will look easier with parentheses.

Commas, on the, other hand, are turning up, everywhere.

https://theonion.com/commas-turning-up-everywhere-1819569774...

The utility : pretentiousness ratio is too low.