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No, no! Don't abuse the poor semi-colon.
A semicolon separates two complete sentences when they are not joined by a coordinating conjunction. Because your examples include "and" and "but," you would not use a semicolon, you would use a comma:
Peter held the cat, and Mark chased the dogs away. Alvin kicked the door shut, but the wind blew it open again.
If you like semicolons and want to use them, drop the coordinating conjunctions:
Peter held the cat; Mark chased the dogs away. Alvin kicked the door shut; the wind blew it open again.
Make sense?
posted by
editormum
on
December 8, 2005
at
12:20 PM
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reply
Editormum
In this example, I would use a semicolon : Peter held the cat ; and Mark chased the dogs away. Alvin kicked the door shut ; but the wind blew it open again.
What say you, my learned friend?
posted by
ariel70
on
December 8, 2005
at
6:12 AM
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