The history of the semicolon starts in a Venetian print shop. Aldus Manutius printed it in Pietro Bembo's De Aetna, dated February 1495 in the Venetian style and 1496 in ours, in a type cut by Francesco Griffo. It reached an English book in 1538, flourished in the centuries after, and still divides writers. Our view, stated plainly: in academic writing it earns its place in the two jobs the academic style guides agree on, and in citations it is not optional at all.
EdCitation publishes this guide. We read the libraries' records of De Aetna, Neil Rhodes's study of the mark's arrival in English, the writers' own books and the style guides' own pages on 2 October 2026. A remark we could not trace is marked unconfirmed.
EdCitation never writes any part of anyone's work, and we hold that line with pride: every sentence, and every semicolon in it, stays yours. What it does is find, cite and check. Cite a source builds references in six styles from the publisher's record, and Mechanics QA reads a finished paper for formatting and the slips a spell-checker lets through.
Who invented the semicolon?
Three collaborators in Venice share the credit: Aldus Manutius, the printer and publisher; Francesco Griffo of Bologna, who cut the type; and Pietro Bembo, whose Latin dialogue about climbing Mount Etna was the first book to carry it. Rhodes (2019) dates its arrival in print to Aldus's Venice in the 1490s.
What De Aetna shows
Watson (2019), a historian of science, describes De Aetna as the first literary Latin text Aldus issued, with a new hybrid mark "specially cut" for it by Griffo. It was meant to mark a pause longer than a comma and shorter than a colon, and its shape joins half of each. Watson adds a trap for anyone looking at the pages: a similar dot-and-curve also appears there as shorthand for the Latin -que, and it sits higher on the line.
Watson dates the birth to 1494. The libraries date the book itself: Cambridge University Library (2012) gives February 1495 "more Veneto", that is 1496, and the Bavarian State Library catalogues its digitised copy as 1495/96 (Bembo, 1496). We follow the libraries, because the printed book is the evidence. Magdalen College, Oxford, credits Aldus with "the modern use of the semicolon", and his grandson Aldus the Younger published a treatise on Latin spelling and punctuation at fourteen (Della Rocca de Candal & Ferdinand, 2016).
The copy Bembo corrected
Cambridge's copy carries corrections in Bembo's own hand, some not noticed in any other copy. It belonged to the typographer Stanley Morison, then to the Monotype Corporation, which gave it to the library in 1967 (Cambridge University Library, 2012). Fittingly, in 1929 Morison and Monotype's designers had modelled the typeface Bembo on Griffo's roman (MyFonts, n.d.).
How did the semicolon spread into English?
Slowly, then decisively. Rhodes (2019) finds its first English appearance in Richard Grafton's printing of the Coverdale Bible in 1538, at a press in Paris; English presses took it up only gradually, from about 1580, and the 1590s were the decade it overtook the colon as the usual mid-sentence pause.
| Date | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| February 1496 | De Aetna printed by Aldus, in Griffo's type, with the first printed semicolons | Cambridge University Library (2012); Watson (2019) |
| 1538 | First semicolons in an English text, the Coverdale Bible printed in Paris | Rhodes (2019) |
| 1589 | The name "semi-colon" first used, by Edmund Bunny | Rhodes (2019) |
| 1851 | Moby-Dick: 4,169 semicolons in 213,665 words | Harper (2020) |
| 1878 | The Remington 2 typewriter puts the mark on the home row | Harper (2020) |
| 1947 | Orwell calls it an "unnecessary stop" | Keeble (2023) |
| 1963 | King's letter from Birmingham jail: nine in one sentence | King (1963) |
| 1979 | Lewis Thomas: "I have grown fond of semicolons" | Thomas (1979) |
| 2005 | Vonnegut: "Do not use semicolons" | Vonnegut (2005) |
A name, and a rule, still unsettled
Rhodes (2019) traces the word to 1589, when Edmund Bunny accused the Jesuit Robert Parsons of altering Bunny's words by repointing them, if only "with a semi-colon"; Rhodes notes that this predates the Oxford English Dictionary's first citation, Ben Jonson's English Grammar. Daines still called the mark a "comma-colon" in 1640, and Jonson, following Ramus's grammar, treated it as a shorter pause than the comma.
Rise and decline
Bruthiaux (1995), tracing four centuries of use in one kind of English text, found that it flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and may since have become a marginal mark. Harper (2020), on the Chicago Manual of Style's blog, counted 1,876 semicolons in Middlemarch and 1,385 in Bleak House, then checked twelve recent New Yorker stories: half had two or fewer, and three had none.
Who loved the semicolon, and who hated it?
Both sides are easy to misquote, so each remark here is traced to where it was published.
The enemies
Kurt Vonnegut. The famous quote is on page 23 of A Man Without a Country: "Do not use semicolons", because they are "transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing" and "All they do is show you've been to college" (Vonnegut, 2005). Read on and the next lines admit that readers may not know whether the author is kidding. A speech dated 27 April 2007 for Clowes Hall, Indianapolis, printed in Armageddon in Retrospect, repeats the advice, now saying they "suggest you might have gone to college" (Vonnegut, 2008).
George Orwell. In a letter of 22 October 1947 to Roger Senhouse of the publisher Secker & Warburg, Orwell wrote of having decided to write Coming Up for Air without the semicolon, an "unnecessary stop". Keeble (2023), for the Orwell Society, notes that a collector still found some across its editions, and counts 387 in Homage to Catalonia, 55 in Animal Farm and 171 in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell's other rules are in Orwell's rules for writers.
Donald Barthelme. In the essay "Not-Knowing", Barthelme called the mark "ugly as a tick on a dog's belly", adding "I pinch them out of my prose" (DeYoung, 2013).
GOV.UK. The government's style guide bans them as often misread (Government Digital Service, n.d.); see plain English at work.
The friends
Lewis Thomas. In "Notes on Punctuation", collected in The Medusa and the Snail, Thomas wrote "I have grown fond of semicolons in recent years", praising the "pleasant little feeling of expectancy" one gives (Thomas, 1979).
Martin Luther King Jr. In the letter dated 16 April 1963, the sentence that begins "But when you have seen vicious mobs" runs for 315 words and nine semicolons in the University of Pennsylvania's transcription, before it ends on why "we find it difficult to wait" (King, 1963).
The Guardian. Its style guide calls the mark, used well, "a very elegant compromise" between a full stop and a comma (The Guardian, 2021).
Unconfirmed: Lincoln and Shaw
Two friendly remarks lack a source we could read. Abraham Lincoln is widely said to have called the semicolon "a useful little chap" to the journalist Noah Brooks, but it is not in Brooks's 1879 essay on Lincoln, the piece we read (Brooks, 1879). George Bernard Shaw's line to T. E. Lawrence, that avoiding semicolons was "a symptom of mental defectiveness", is reported by The Guardian (2021); we did not see the letter. Both are unconfirmed.
Did a semicolon ever change the meaning of history?
One famous document turns on one. On 24 February 1616, eleven consultants to the Roman Inquisition judged the proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and does not move "foolish and absurd in philosophy" and "formally heretical". Graney (2014), with images of the original, argues that a semicolon separates the two verdicts, where many printed versions have a comma or nothing. With the semicolon, the appeal to Scripture supports only the charge of heresy, and the scientific verdict stands on its own. How Maine mended an overtime law with semicolons is told in our Oxford comma guide.
How do you use a semicolon?
Use it for two jobs: between two closely related independent clauses, and between items in a list that already contain commas. Harper (2020) gives those as the two common uses in the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, sections 6.56 and 6.60, and adds that formal prose rarely allows more.
- Join two sentences that belong together. The Guardian's example: "Some reporters were brilliant; others were less so." Each side must be able to stand alone.
- Separate list items that contain commas. "We visited Duluth, Minnesota; Abilene, Texas; and Detroit, Michigan" is Harper's example. The Oxford comma guide covers the commas around them.
- Before and, but or or when both clauses are long and full of commas. The MLA allows a semicolon there to help the reader (Modern Language Association, 2020).
- Not where your house style bans it, as GOV.UK's does.
Semicolons in academic writing
APA's punctuation page says the Publication Manual covers semicolons in chapter 6 but that only part of its guidance is online, so we could not read APA's own prose rule (American Psychological Association, 2019). Where your brief names a style, follow it; where it names none, use the two common jobs and nothing more. The semicolon's neighbour has its own story in a history of the em dash.
Where do semicolons go in citations and reference lists?
In citations the semicolon has fixed jobs, and each style sets them. The commonest: several works in one set of brackets are separated by semicolons.
| Style | Where the semicolon goes | Example from the style's own page | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | Between works in one citation, in alphabetical order | (Adams et al., 2019; Shumway & Shulman, 2015; Westinghouse, 2017) | American Psychological Association (2022) |
| APA 7 | Before "see also" | (Sampson & Hughes, 2020; see also Augustine, 2017) | American Psychological Association (2022) |
| APA 7 | Between a data set's number and version | (ICPSR 36966; Version V1) | American Psychological Association (2020) |
| MLA | Between sources, outside any quotation marks | (Henden, "Sweden Election Polls"; Hernroth-Rothstein; Milne) | Modern Language Association (2019) |
| MLA | In place of full stops in a caption with full details | Fig. 1. Vincent van Gogh; The Olive Trees; 1889 | Modern Language Association (2018) |
| Chicago author-date | Between works, and before a comment | (Armstrong and Malacinski 1989; Beigl 1989) | Mississippi University for Women Library (2026) |
| Harvard | Between sources | (Philips, 1995; Norton, 2005) | University of Northampton Library (2025) |
| Vancouver | Before the volume, and between publisher and year | 2002 Jul 25;347(4):284-7; New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002 | National Library of Medicine (n.d.) |
One note: the MLA pages for the parenthetical example and the conjunction rule say they were written for the 8th edition. More on grouping in APA 7 in-text citations and the Vancouver referencing guide.
A worked example
We gave Rhodes's DOI, 10.1353/hlq.2019.0004, to EdCitation's Cite a source on 2 October 2026. The Vancouver entry came back with the semicolon where the National Library of Medicine puts it:
Rhodes N. Punctuation as rhetorical notation? From colon to semicolon. Huntingt Libr Q. 2019;82(1):87-106. doi: 10.1353/hlq.2019.0004.
The APA 7 entry from the same record gave the in-text citation (Rhodes, 2019); cited with Bruthiaux, it becomes (Bruthiaux, 1995; Rhodes, 2019).
How does EdCitation help with the semicolons in a paper?
EdCitation checks the paper around your punctuation and never touches the punctuation itself. In our view it is the best partner for that last read, because it works from rules and records: a reference is looked up in the publisher's record, never written.
Mechanics QA, for a paper held to a style
Upload a Word document or a PDF to Mechanics QA and it reads the paper by rule. Formatting: font, size, spacing, margins, title page, headings and the reference list, held to the APA 7 student paper. Leftovers: comments, tracked changes, placeholders and template text. Citations: each one matched to the list, and each reference looked up in the publisher's record. Numbers and language: figures that disagree between sections, and the slips a spell-checker lets through. No model reads the paper, and every finding names the rule it broke and its fix, marked where it sits. Whether a semicolon belongs in a sentence stays your call. Pro, at $8 a month or $72 paid for a year, runs it without limit, and a free account can try it three times a month (pricing).
Find sources and Verify references, free
EdCitation's Find sources searches about 300 million published works. On 2 October 2026, "history of the semicolon" returned 10,315 results; Glausser's "What Do Semicolons Mean? Historical Analysis and an Interpretive Experiment" came sixth and Rhodes's essay eighth. The list also held papers on "semicolonial" history, so read titles before you cite.
We then pasted five of this guide's references into Verify references. Three came back verified. Bruthiaux's came back doubtful: "The DOI and title are right, but the first author differs. Check the names." The publisher's record at Crossref spells the name "BRUTHlAUX", with a lower-case l; the entry was right, and the check showed where to look. Watson's essay came back unchecked, because the site "turns automated readers away": could not check, never "not found".
Quick questions
Who invented the semicolon?
The Venetian printer Aldus Manutius introduced it into print, in Pietro Bembo's De Aetna of 1496 (February 1495 in the Venetian style), in a type cut by Francesco Griffo.
What did Kurt Vonnegut say about semicolons?
In A Man Without a Country (2005), page 23, Vonnegut wrote "Do not use semicolons" and said all they do is show you have been to college; the next lines suggest the advice was partly a joke.
Can I use semicolons in academic writing?
Yes. Use them between two closely related independent clauses and between list items that contain commas, unless your style or brief says otherwise.
How do I separate two citations in one set of brackets?
With a semicolon, in APA, MLA, Chicago author-date and Harvard: (Bruthiaux, 1995; Rhodes, 2019) in APA. EdCitation's Cite a source gives each work's in-text citation.
Will EdCitation correct my semicolons?
No. EdCitation leaves every sentence as you wrote it, punctuation included. Mechanics QA, in Pro, checks formatting, citations and the slips a spell-checker lets through, and the punctuation choices stay yours.
References
- American Psychological Association. (2019). Punctuation. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/punctuation
- American Psychological Association. (2020). Data set references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/data-set-references
- American Psychological Association. (2022). Citing multiple works. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles/multiple-works
- Bembo, P. (1496). De Aetna [Digitised copy, 4 Inc.c.a. 1180]. Aldus Manutius. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb00048024
- Brooks, N. (1879). Lincoln's imagination. Scribner's Monthly, 18, 584–587. https://archive.org/details/lincolnsimaginat00broo
- Bruthiaux, P. (1995). The rise and fall of the semicolon: English punctuation theory and English teaching practice. Applied Linguistics, 16(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/16.1.1
- Cambridge University Library. (2012, August 11). Pietro Bembo and the University Library's copy of De Aetna (1496). Cambridge University Library Special Collections. https://specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=51
- Della Rocca de Candal, G., & Ferdinand, C. (2016, March 26). Magdalen's Aldines. Magdalen College, Oxford. https://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/blog/magdalens-aldines/
- DeYoung, J. (2013, July 6). Donald Barthelme essay "Not-Knowing" @ The Whole Hurly Burly. Numéro Cinq. https://numerocinqmagazine.com/2013/07/06/donald-barthelme-essay-not-knowing-the-whole-hurly-burly/
- Glausser, W. (2019). What do semicolons mean? Historical analysis and an interpretive experiment. Style, 53(3), 308–325. https://doi.org/10.1353/sty.2019.0022
- Government Digital Service. (n.d.). A to Z style guide. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/style-guide/a-to-z
- Graney, C. M. (2014). The Inquisition's semicolon: Punctuation, translation, and science in the 1616 condemnation of the Copernican system (arXiv:1402.6168). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1402.6168
- The Guardian. (2021, May 4). Guardian and Observer style guide: S. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-s
- Harper, R. (2020, January 22). Semicolons in fiction. CMOS Shop Talk. https://cmosshoptalk.com/2020/01/22/semicolons-in-fiction/
- Keeble, R. L. (2023, January 14). How Orwell made his (exclamation) marks! The Orwell Society. https://orwellsociety.com/how-orwell-made-his-exclamation-marks/
- King, M. L., Jr. (1963, April 16). Letter from a Birmingham jail. African Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania. https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
- Mississippi University for Women Library. (2026). Author-date. Chicago citation guide. https://libguides.muw.edu/chicago/author-date
- Modern Language Association. (2018, December 6). When should citation information in captions be separated by commas instead of semicolons? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/punctuating-citations-in-captions/
- Modern Language Association. (2019, June 26). If I need to separate titles styled in quotation marks by semicolons in my parenthetical citations, should the semicolons go inside or outside the quotation marks? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/titles-quotation-marks-semicolons/
- Modern Language Association. (2020, August 4). When should I use a semicolon before a coordinating conjunction? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/semicolons-conjunctions/
- MyFonts. (n.d.). Bembo MT. Monotype. https://www.myfonts.com/collections/bembo-mt-font-monotype-imaging
- National Library of Medicine. (n.d.). Samples of formatted references for authors of journal articles. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html
- Rhodes, N. (2019). Punctuation as rhetorical notation? From colon to semicolon. Huntington Library Quarterly, 82(1), 87–106. https://doi.org/10.1353/hlq.2019.0004
- Thomas, L. (1979). The medusa and the snail: More notes of a biology watcher. Viking Press. https://archive.org/details/medusasnailmoren00thom
- University of Northampton Library. (2025). Citing more than one source. Harvard referencing. https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/harvard/citing/multiplesources
- Vonnegut, K. (2005). A man without a country. Seven Stories Press. https://archive.org/details/manwithoutcountr00kurt
- Vonnegut, K. (2008). Armageddon in retrospect: And other new and unpublished writings on war and peace. Putnam. https://archive.org/details/armageddoninretr00vonn
- Watson, C. (2019, August 1). The birth of the semicolon. The Paris Review. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/08/01/the-birth-of-the-semicolon/