" She punched the baby in the face; not surprisingly, the baby cried. "
" I shot the poor bastard in the head; now he's dead "

I wonder what happened or which person has pissed you this much to write such examples as those.Hehehe...
They were fun nonetheless! Yeah the semicolons, this is the very first thing I find that English and Portuguese has in common. This is good because I truly didn't know I could do that in English. Cool.

If I may suggest, I'd appreciate if you or anyone talked a bit about the correct use of commas? Because I find it hard sometimes to use them right without overusing them, heh. I don't know if many people have problems with that but ya know I would truly appreciate if you could talk a bit about that. =)

"Super-comma" was how my one teacher described a semi-colon back in high-school. Basically, anything that has a semi-colon is an instant win with English teachers across the board. I adore them; this workshop summed up why.

These workshops are great. ^_^ College student or not... I find grammar tedious so I didn't pay attention like I should have in High School. >_> So realistically, just about any topic you cover in terms of grammar usage will be useful to read. I know everyone you've done so far has been.

-Sabrina

@Magnus Lensherr:

Hmm . . . alright, I think we could handle that for ya, sure!

If no one else touches it this week, I'll do it this Monday.

The main thing for me is when sentences become run on sentences and commas become comma splices. I have an idea what the terms mean, but I am unable to completely understand when a sentence becomes run on and commas become comma splices. Seeing the examples of them both, along with examples of proper and improper use, would be really helpful and hopefully will help me finally nail them down.

As you saw with my work they were haphazardly placed where I thought they would look good, but with little understanding of positioning. Same here too probably. So anything you can do about that would be extremely helpful and much appreciated ^_^

Dranz

@Magnus Lensherr:

Ah yes, the damn commas . . .

There's a lot that can be done with commas. Are there any specific questions you'd like filled?

I thought this was fantastic, I really loved the use of examples and the part where we had to chose the right sentence. I was quite happy I got it right. I look forward to the one about the commas when it appears. Thank you for doing this ^_^

Dranz

@Aaryanna:

Ah, it ain't so annoying once you figure out how it plays ball.

Anyway, your little excerpt looks fine to me. The first sentence is maybe a little unwieldy, but grammatically everything there is good.

(And yes, I used "ain't". Wanna make somethin' of it?)

I love these workshops. They really help a lot.

@SomeGuy:

Oh sure... >_> I'm always up to embarrassing improving myself grammar wise. XP

This sentence where there is a period and the semicolon, use to be nothing but commas, but... I didn't like how it looked so I changed it.

She had seen a broadcast about it on the news, about how the son of Mikhail Ivanov of Ivan Enterprises would be a guest on board the Von Braun. It explained why he had looked familiar; she had seen his picture in the broadcast.

>_> Like I said, I don't know if it's right or not. Grammar just annoys me to no end.

~*Aaryanna*~

@Aaryanna:

Wanna share an example some time? We can fill you in on that if you'd like.

I found this section interesting:

Semicolons as Super Commas:

When I have a really long sentence... I hate having tons of commas so I end up fixing it with a semicolon. >_> I think I'm using it correctly, but who knows? :p

~*Aaryanna*~

@NightBeck:

Right. Semicolons are best used for separating clauses. Got it. Thanks.

@Allamorph:

Mm. Yeah, I'm cool for that.

Thanks for the eye.

@jomz:

Technically it's not wrong, but in that case commas look neater and flow easier. I tend to use semicolons either when my individual list items are each really long or when there are commas in each listed item.

Sometimes I get confused with these semicolon thing. My greatest mistake was when enumerating addresses where commas are already in place. Yeah, I did notice they look strange.

What if you are listing short items, can you use semicolons?

I took an eraser; a pencil; a baby; and some guy to punch the baby in my drawing class.

It looks kind of strange and wrong to me, but what do you think?

Oh, by the way, yeah, the baby punching example may be kind of getting overused, but there's nothing wrong with hilarious examples, right?

Also, I'm not sure how that close-bracket turned into a close-arrow.....or whatever you call it.

Aside from the general nodding I was doing, I noticed one oddity:

The Spartans had several factors leading to their success as a nation-state: young, healthy boys were trained from a young age to only be soldiers; they had a unique dual-king system where only one king would ever go out on campaign, never leaving them without a living leader at any given time; they had enslaved an entire group of people, the helots, to do all the menial work.

I think that feels a tad redundant there in the second listed item. Since you're enumerating what the Spartans had, you really don't need to repeat that they had it.

The third "they had" (which I marked differently) was fine, since it was only part of the (past perfect) verb, and not the entire thing; it was "they had enslaved" instead of only "they had" [alt. "they possessed">.

I hope you don't mind my mentioning that item; I constantly chasten myself over redundancy, so I'm just tryin' to help a brotha' out.

Semicolons are our friends ^^

Yeah, using them when listing things that already have commas really comes in handy.

I really don't understand why people don't encourage the use of semi-colons more. I think perhaps teachers make them seem more intimidating than they really are; up until now, I assumed I used semi-colons too liberally, as all other students (and even some writers!) seem to avoid them like the bubonic plague. :/

@red tigress:

Ohh yeah . . . yeah, that was probably me.

It could have just been my imagination, but I think I noticed a semi-colon in my finalized Renji essay where I don't know if I wrote one...

And I like commas, and starting sentences with because! Why? Because I can.