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24.1Semicolons: Lists of lengthy items

TYPICAL ERROR There are many different places that a tourist could visit in New Zealand: for example, the thermal region, where geysers spurt twenty metres into the air, where mud pools plop and bubble and where natural steam is harnessed to generate electricity, the Queenstown region, where autumn tonings and snowy peaks are mirrored in glassy lakes to make a breathtaking spectacle and where glow-worms light up the ceilings of caves like the night sky, and the rugged west coast of the South Island, where glaciers gouge their way to the sea and fjords bear witness to past ice ages.

CORRECTION There are many different places that a tourist could visit in New Zealand: for example, the thermal region, where geysers spurt twenty metres into the air, where mud pools plop and bubble and where natural steam is harnessed to generate electricity; the Queenstown region, where autumn tonings and snowy peaks are mirrored in glassy lakes to make a breathtaking spectacle and where glow-worms light up the ceilings of caves like the night sky; and the rugged west coast of the South Island, where glaciers gouge their way to the sea and fjords bear witness to past ice ages.

EXPLANATION The semicolon, like the comma, is used to separate items in a list. While the comma separates individual words and short phrases, the semicolon is used to separate long phrases and clauses in a list - particularly where the clauses have their own internal commas.

Change commas to semicolons in this passage where appropriate.

The history course this year will cover the early settlement of Australia by Aboriginal peoples, their nomadic existence and some of their cultural practices, the journey of the Endeavour, captained by James Cook, from 1768 to 1771 and the consequent discovery of Australia by Britain, the establishment of a settlement at Sydney Cove in 1788, the problems faced by the early settlers, their attempts to solve these problems and their successes and failures, and, finally, the work of the early British explorers in opening up New South Wales to white settlement.