FRIDAY FUNNIES: "Using the Semicolon."
Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
SEMICOLONS!
Perhaps the most commonly misunderstood English punctuation mark, the semicolon does not appear very often in most written documents. Much of its exclusion is likely due to the fact that there are fewer instances in which it is needed in comparison to the more common comma and period. Personally, I think that the fact that not a lot of people seem to know how to use it correctly might also have something to do with it. And it isn't hard to see why: the semicolon is depicted as a period-like dot position above a comma-like curled line, and the alignment of the dot over the line looks similar to the two dots that make up a colon. All and all, the design alone sets the semicolon up for eternal misuse, especially when it comes to comma splices.
In the case of comma splices, two complete sentences are incorrectly joined by a comma, which is reserved for separating various elements within a complete sentence as well as joining two complete sentences along with a conjunction. Therefore, the only thing that your run-of-the-mill comma splice needs to become correct is either a conjunction after the comma or a dot above the comma, transforming it into a semicolon.
So what does the semicolon actually do?
First, as stated above, it separates two complete sentences. Second, it acts as a sort of "mega-comma" and replaces the commas that separate elements in which there are already commas. Third, it separates three or more complete sentences that act as elements in one sentence. And of course, it acts as the eye portion of the popular "winky" emoticon, as demonstrated by this Toon Pool comic:
For more on the semicolon, you can refer to this post on punctuation by skroberts or fandom_grammar's general archive of posts related to the subject.
Recently, the semicolon has been promoted by Project Semicolon, a movement in which those are suffering from or have suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts tattoo the punctuation mark on themselves as a symbol of choosing not to end their lives--just as a writer chooses not to end his or her sentence by using it. You can read more about the movement here.
Now you may go forth, young Padawans, with your newly acquired knowledge and defeat every semicolon-related grammatical error that you encounter. May the Semicolon be with you.