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Akeem Lasisi
We are back in punctuation marks class today. We shall discuss semi colons (;) from what I will call another perspective. Based on my observations of how some confuse it with others like the full stop, comma and colon, I want to establish how NOT to use the semi colon, with the hope that it will broaden everyone’s perspective on it.
Error one: Capital letters after semi colons
The expression that follows a semi colon should not start with a capital letter – unless it is a proper noun. This is a major difference between the semi colon and a full stop, and why the latter is considered stronger than the first. After you end a clause with a full stop, the one (clause/sentence) that follows it starts with a capital letter. This is, however, not the situation with the semi colon because the expression that follows it is not a new or an independent/full sentence. It is a part of the initial one: