Semicolon, comma, or new sentence??

Question

I'm struggling with the proper usage of the semicolon. Below are a couple variations of a thought. Which is correct?

1) 2pm is perfect! I’ll fly in Friday morning for the meeting; So 2pm will give me plenty of time to get lunch before we meet.

2) 2pm is perfect! I’ll fly in Friday morning for the meeting, so 2pm will give me plenty of time to get lunch before we meet.

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Welcome to the Forum.

I'm struggling with the proper usage of the semicolon. Below are a couple variations of a thought. Which is correct?
1) 2pm is perfect! I’ll fly in Friday morning for the meeting; So 2pm will give me plenty of time to get lunch before we meet.
Remove the conjunction 'so' if you wish to use a semi-colon. I don't recommend a semi-colon here.

2) 2pm is perfect! I’ll fly in Friday morning for the meeting, so 2pm will give me plenty of time to get lunch before we meet.
This is the best idea.

3) 2pm is perfect! I’ll fly in Friday morning for the meeting. So 2pm will give me plenty of time to get lunch before we meet.
Delete the conjunction 'so' if you want to use two sentences.

I feel like the thoughts are connected If you start to use a semi-colon every time there is some kind of connection between thoughts, your writing will have gazillions of them and look very odd!

and therefore need a semicolon to hold them together. Yet I lean towards just using a period to seperate the thought....

Best wishes, Clive

Run-on · Answer

Thanks Clive!

Your help was a more detailed and thorough than I was expecting.

Thank you

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