this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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literally unusable if you don't want to be seen as an illiterate chatgpt monger. so depressing. I'm tired of using semi colons and commas in their stead, they're just too clunky in certain situations. burn the data centers down. fuck and when all actual writers have switched over, like I have (not calling myself a writer fyi), then the ai will just start using those instead. nothing good comes from generative, recreational ai. opium crisis of our times, no use. genuinely, no use. fuck them all. fuck the child herder elon and his (possibly) bastard son peter thiel. karp fuck you too

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[–] ReadFanon@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

It was. A semicolon is used where each sentence/clause can stand independently yet they are also related to one another; if you can start an entirely new sentence that makes sense by itself yet it could technically also be joined to the prior one using a comma then a semicolon fits.

Like the em-dash it's a really handy punctuation tool for people who tend to use lots of subclauses and run on sentences (not naming any names here lol) because if you're putting a list with commas in it then dropping a strategic and appropriately used semicolon improves readability because it signals "we're not listing things now and this isn't another subclause, we're moving on to a different phase of writing but also it's not a completely different thought - these two parts are interrelated."

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

I use semicolon when I've already used comma as a list separator and feel like it might be confusing to use comma for separating clauses.

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hell yeah, dude. Learning through trying to seem clever is at least a reason to learn

[–] ReadFanon@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

At the earliest age kids learn by failing over and over again and then, at some point, we decide that past a certain age it's no longer socially acceptable to learn by making attempts and, instead of people being polite and encouraging learning, people shame attempts and any mistakes. It's ridiculous imo.

When it comes to learning language there's definitely a developmental stage in our brains that makes it easier to pick up a new language but I swear half of the reason why it's hard to learn a new language as an adult is because of the deep-seated fear of humiliation that society instills in us over what is just a natural part of learning.

Fuck that shit, what a ridiculous arrangement and all we get out of it is stunted learning opportunities and higher rates of dementia.