Isn't a semi-colon used when the items/sentance/word etc are related?

Thats what I've always thought. Never seem to use them either, but then I'm not good at writing stuff, really struggling with my Design Doc for my coursework,

Same, I waffle to much

I just have no idea what to write.

My head is empty, there are no ideas or anything flying around my head.

So its sodding difficult to start writing from a blank word doc.

Just write bullet points and work from them?

The thing about a comma is, as far as I know, you need to have two.

It was taught to me that a comma is used to insert something into a sentence that helps the readability or context. So you kind of 'surround' the bit of extra text with commas. I was taught to use semicolons to present a list of alternatives of equal value in much the way Heather described. IYour example, strictly, would seem to me to be two separate sentences as in :-



Jon

So why did Word correct me with this way?

The semi colon is correct in this way. But so is the full stop.

The semi colon can be used to conjoin two sentences which are related.

Or something...

Commas are used to add further detail to a subject of your sentence. i.e.

"The dog, which was very big, jumped up and caught the frisbee."

The part "which was very big" is not a complete sentence.

You could also use a comma thus...

"The dog managed to catch the frisbee, no dog had done this before."

Are you sure about that? That looks like it should be two separate sentences to me.

To my mind commas are brief pauses, while semi colons are longer ones.

The bold part gives more information.

"The cat sat on the mat, which was green."
"which was green" wasn't needed, if you take it away you haven't really lost anything. Or something like that...

The section after the 'chairs in superglue' bit is explanatory, an adjunct to the first part. A comma could also work but a semi-colon works better; it more articulates the purpose of the second part of the sentence more clearly.



Now, I wasn't taught that. See? That's twice I've used a comma all by itself. It can indicate a pause, or be used for example, in a list.
In fact I'd say that using a comma to make a list is more suitable than a semi-colon.



Which was also taught to me. One of the things I love about the English language it's ability to be crafted.
Limiting yourself to understand and using only, what, 3 forms of punctuation is a real pity. Personally, each form of punctuation has it's own implied status and meaning; it's own flavour.

I think we need Heather for this.

To me:

"The cat sat on the mat, which was green."

Is grammatically correct.

"The dog managed to catch the frisbee, no dog had done this before."

Is not.

Its not something I can explain, and I could easily be wrong. I'm probably one of the few people here without a basic secondary school English qualification.

See above, I've taken the first colon and placed it after "used". If you take away "for example" the sentence still makes sense...That's what I was trying to get at in my previous post...

"The dog managed to catch the frisbee, which no dog had done this before."

Better?

I'd say that it's not wrong, but that "The dog managed to catch the frisbee; no dog had done this before" is better.

Yes, it still makes sense, but not it's a clumsier structure for it. A semi-colon changes the rhythm of the sentence.

Much.