Question

Which sentence correctly uses the semicolon?

It was already late in the evening; and I wanted to go to bed. There was no reason to stay awake, since we knew that the power would not come back on until the morning. It had been a most unpleasant coincidence that the power outage had come when we had guests staying over; the entire house was full. Still, most of our guests had been understanding about it; so there was, for the most part, good humor all around. Staying on the second floor of the house were Uncle John, Aunt Sally, cousin Roger, Pete, the twins, and myself. We had it worse than everyone on the first floor, all the windows in all the upstairs rooms were tinted; and there wasn’t enough moonlight in the first place.

A)It was already late in the evening; and I wanted to go to bed.

B) It had been a most unpleasant coincidence that the power outage had come when we had guests staying over; the entire house was full.

C) Still, most of our guests had been understanding about it; so there was, for the most part, good humor all around.

D) We had it worse than everyone on the first floor, all the windows in all the upstairs rooms were tinted; and there wasn’t enough moonlight in the first place.

Answer 1

B. A semicolon is used when you want to combine 2 sentences into one

Answer 2

B) It had been a most unpleasant coincidence that the power outage had come when we had guests staying over; the entire house was full.

This is the correct answer because the semicolon is carrying out its function here: to join two independent clauses that are related to each other.

A, C and D are wrong because they all have conjunction following the semicolon: "and" and "so". And semicolons aren't used with conjunctions, as for they both perform the same function: to link two independent clauses. So when trying to connect two independent clauses, we can either use a semicolon or conjunction, not both at the same time.