Last Tuesday we started to see the uses of the semicolon. Today we will finish. Hopefully this information, taken from Chapter XII of the essential guide for writing in English - forthcoming at Editorial Planeta-be useful for those visiting this blog.
learned in Chapter X it is necessary to use commas to separate items in series, which can be words of the same class (nouns, adjectives, adverbs or prepositions, in the case following are nouns): "I need to buy meat , vegetables , milk , bread , dessert " phrases of the same nature (in this case, substantive) "We must focus on performing loans , customers at risk of losing their jobs , unpayable mortgages " combinations of words and phrases of the same nature (in this case also, substantive): "The bank provides services loan , investment Fixed term , savings , insurance of any kind "sentences in series:" The murderer is came the door , up his rifle , focused his victim and pulled trigger . "
Now if we were to include any incidental information within these series, should move up in commas, as we did in the cases of ellipses: they must become with a semicolon. Would use commas to indicate which item belongs to which element of the series:
need to buy meat , other than pork; vegetables , to boil in water bath; milk , but only lactose-free; bread , if not white; dessert .
We must focus on performing loans , which has always been a concern; customers at risk of losing their jobs because it will no longer pay its debts; unpayable mortgages due to sink the whole financial system.
Banking offers services loan , especially the rich fixed term investment , those who are not required to live a day savings , who does not supply all his salary on food and housing; insurance of any kind , but only those who really do not need.
The murderer, with an incredible secret, came the door ; up his rifle , without anyone noticing the movement, in cold blood focused his victim and, without thinking twice , pulled trigger .
The following example comes from a text on the children of German soldiers and French women during the Second World War:
In the east, Alsace-Moselle was annexed by the Third Reich, near the border with Belgium, Nord Pas-de-Calais was under German control from Brussels, in the Alps, very small territories were annexed by Italy. [1]
is also common to use the semicolon when it comes to lists of officials whose names are accompanied by their titles, or any analogous situation apposition:
A conference attended by Emiliano Palacios, director of marketing; Ulalume Garrido Pérez, Deputy Director of Research, Marciano Lowenthal, Managing Director of Finance.
The tour will include visits to places of birth of Ludwig Van Beethoven, the genius of Bonn, Johann Sebastian Bach, King of the musicians, Frederic Chopin, the poet of the keyboard, Mozart, classic par excellence, and Salieri, the alleged murderer of Mozart. [2]
The semicolon: a common mistake
Some writers misuse the semicolon. In general, this error happens before a sentence is subordinate to another principal, as in the following cases:
1. road accidents in France are increasing, although it had taken action.
2. A section of the Belgian population wish to become French, which could threaten the political unity of Belgium.
3. If we compare the French of Quebec with that of The Hexagon; [3] might seem archaic.
We recorded this rule: no punctuation other than a comma can separate the main clause of its subordinate . In the first instance, could be a comma after the word increase . This would give as incidental (not essential) to the concessive subordinate circumstance as follows:
road accidents in France are increasing, although it had taken action.
Without the comma, the information contained in the subordinate clause is understood as essential:
road accidents in France are on the increase although they had taken action.
In examples 2 and 3, the comma is absolutely necessary. In the second comma is needed because the subordinate clause that follows is, in short, incidental, under connector which , which always introduces sentences adjectival subordinate explanatory, as we saw in Chapter IX.
A section of the Belgian population wish to become French, which could threaten the political unity of Belgium.
If we keep the semi-colon, would have to convert the subject in a sentence grammatically independent coordinated by juxtaposition with the previous :
A section of the Belgian population wish to become French, it could threaten the political unity of Belgium.
coma can only be used in Example 3, since the proposition starts with a subordinate clause conditional circumstance, as we saw in Chapter XI, under the section "There is no discretion case 2. "
If we compare the French of Quebec with that of the hexagon, it might seem archaic. But :
might seem archaic French in Quebec if we compare with that of the hexagon.
[1] Fabrice Virgili, "Enfants de Boches: the War Children of France" in The Children of World War II . The Hidden Enemy Legacy , Kjersti Ericsson and Eva Simonsen (eds.), New York, Berg, 2005. p. 138.
[2] Alexander Pushkin to write his brief two-scene play Mozart and Salieri took the legend of the Italian composer Antonio Salieri, resident in Vienna, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart poisoned . There is no evidence that this is true, but it has become a myth and has earned a solid place in the pantheon of the lies that "everybody" believes, as that of Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake" when informed him that the people had no bread. And that surely lie hastened to the French Revolution.
[3] Often, the French refer to their country as "L'Hexagone" for its geometric shape (a hexagon). There are 22 regions in this Métropolitaine France (metropolitan France) and four régions d'outre-mer (overseas regions). Corsica, a "territorial collectivity", in spite of not being within L'Hexagone - is one of the 22 regions in metropolitan France.
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