Here’s a fun thing you can do with your writing: Take any two simple, clear sentences and use a semicolon to mush them into one. For example, imagine you have a paragraph with just two sentences. “The ...

It begins with a squinting of the eyes. Hm. A semicolon. You approach it with caution. Ok, I can do this. One dot, plus a comma. There. No, wait. That doesn’t look quite right. The questions begin: ...

Cecelia Watson, author of “Semicolon: The Past, Present and Future of a Misunderstood Mark.” Historian and philosopher of science. Faculty member in Bard College’s Language and Thinking program.