It's divisive; it cleaves; it drives some people crazy. The writer Kurt Vonnegut said of the semicolon: It's showy; it's chiefly used to show you've been to college. More than two-thirds of young ...

Semicolon use is down, and its slide is making headlines. In the U.S., these punctuation marks are appearing in published books about half as often as they did 25 years ago. The same trend can be seen ...

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 ...

Have you ever glimpsed a small semicolon tattoo on someone’s wrist? While it may seem like an ordinary punctuation mark, the semicolon tattoo represents a symbolic movement far beyond basic grammar.

Writers and editors don’t always agree; really, they don’t. There was a time, years ago, when I was an editor at the now defunct Times-Union that I made some changes — necessary, I’m sure — to a story ...