Semi-colons have one major use: to link two complete sentences that are closely related. For example:

A semi-colon can often be replaced by a comma followed by ‘and’; or by putting in a different word like 'but' or 'because'; or by a full stop.

None of these versions have quite the same impact as the semi-colon version because parting sentences destroys the rhythm.

The most famous example of semi-colon use can be found at the beginning of some editions of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities.

Other editions use commas. There is no absolutely fixed rule.

Semi-colons can also be used to separate items within a list, if those items are quite long. For example: