Editor’s note: This segment was rebroadcast on Jan. 2, 2026. Click here for that audio. The semicolon has been described as a “graceful pause” in writing. But this graceful punctuation mark is being ...

A recent study has found a 50% decline in the use of semicolons over the last two decades. The decline accelerates a longterm trend: In 1781, British literature featured a semicolon roughly every 90 ...

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Forget black rhinos and the Amazon rainforest: there’s something arguably just as precious joining the endangered species list, only this time, it’s a grammatical rather than biological extinction ...

"Rend your cheeks and rub ashes into your hair," said The Spectator, for the semicolon, that "most elegant, elusive of punctuation marks", is all but dead. Use of the semicolon (in lists, or to join ...

I don’t know about you, but I love a well-placed semicolon; it evokes a sense of drama, an air of anticipation of things to come. Yes, the human race could survive without this punctuation mark, but ...