| Semicolon |
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A semicolon (''' ; ''') is a type of Punctuation mark. HISTORY The origin of the semicolon is traced back to the Italian printer Aldus Manutius the elder. He used it to separate Word s opposed in meaning, and to mark off interdependent statements. The earliest general use of the semicolon in English was in 1591 . Shakespeare 's sonnets have semicolons, and Ben Jonson was the first notable English writer to systematically use them. LANGUAGE USAGE In English, the semicolon has two main purposes: #It binds two sentences more closely than they would be if separated by a '' Full Stop '' or ''period''. It often replaces a conjunction such as ''and'' or ''but''. A writer might consider this appropriate where they are trying to indicate a close relationship between two sentences, or a 'run-on' in meaning from one to the next; they don't wish the connection to be broken by the abrupt use of a full-stop. #It is used as a stronger division than a comma, to make meaning clear in a sentence where Comma s are already being used for other purposes. A common example of this use is to separate the items of a list when some of the items themselves contain commas. There are several rules that govern semicolon placement: #Use a semicolon between closely related Independent Clauses not joined by a Coordinating Conjunction : "I went to the store; it was closed." #Use a semicolon between independent clauses linked with a transitional phrase or conjunctive adverb: "I like to ride horses; however, they don't like to be ridden by me." #Use a semicolon between items in a series containing internal s in Atlanta, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina; Pensacola, Florida; and Mobile, Alabama." A semicolon can be used to separate independent clauses that are joined by coordinating conjunctions when the clauses have internal Comma s that might lead to misreading: "After the game, I won a red beanie baby, four edible ingots, and a certificate of excellence; but when the storm came, I lost it all in a torrent of sleet, snow, and profanity." Semicolons are always placed after closing Quotation Marks and are never followed by an uppercase letter, unless that letter begins a proper noun. In Greek and Church Slavonic , a semicolon indicates a question, similar to a Latin Question Mark . To indicate a major pause or separate sections each of which includes commas (the purposes served by semicolon in English), Greek uses a Middle Dot · (Unicode character 00B7). Greek also uses Middle Dot in place of English colon. Examples : I am alone; my wife had to leave. : I travelled to London, England; Tijuana, Mexico; and Reykjavík, Iceland. : Lisa scored 2,845,770 points; Marcia, 2,312,860; and Jeff, 1,726,640. COMPUTING USAGE In Computer Programming , the semicolon is often used in Imperative Programming Languages to separate multiple Statements (for example, Pascal and JavaScript ). In other Procedural Programming Language s semicolons are required after every statement (such as in PHP , Java , and the C family). Other languages, for example some Assembly Language s and LISP dialects, may use semicolons to mark the beginning of Comment s. In computer systems, the semicolon is represented by Unicode and ASCII Character 59, or 0x003B . MATHEMATICS In the languages of Functions , a semicolon in the argument of a function preceding a Variable indicates that the function may be a function of that variable, but is not necessarily. In Differential Geometry , a semicolon preceding an Index is used to indicate the Covariant Derivative of a function with respect to the Coordinate associated with that index. REFERENCES
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