whenever i search it up its like “erhm actuchually??! you are supposed to use a semicolon between closely related independent clauses which are not joined by a coordinating conjunction!!🤓☝”
EXCUSE ME? I ONLY KNOW LIKE 5 WORDS IN THAT SENTENCE
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The simplest answer is that if you can use a semi-colon, you can definitely use a period. So if you don’t want to, you don’t ever need to use one, except maybe in the list way that another poster mentioned.
Semi-colons are a stylistic choice. So are colons, for that matter: you can use a colon to connect two sentences when the second sentence is an explanation for the first one.
I think of semi-colons as nicest for the cases where you kind of want to make a comma splice. A comma splice is a writing error where you combine two complete sentences with a comma, as in (1).
(1) Almost everyone left for the day, Mary stayed behind.
To fix (1), you can always use a period, as in (2).
(2) Almost everyone left for the day. Mary stayed behind.
But often the instinct that makes you want to write that comma is actually a sign that it would be even better if you used a semicolon, as in (3).
(3) Almost everyone left for the day; Mary stayed behind.
Note that you don’t use a colon there, though, since “Mary stayed behind” isn’t an explanation/elaboration of “Almost everyone left for the day”.
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