Is the semicolon dead? Some grammar enthusiasts say so

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The semicolon has been described as a "graceful pause" in writing. But this graceful punctuation mark is being forgotten.

Mark Lasswell wrote a recent piece on the semicolon and why it's fading away for the Washington Post, where he is an associate op-ed editor.

What are semicolons? Why are they useful?

“They're stronger than a comma. They are a way of separating two connected, but independent clauses, like the one about happy families and unhappy families, they could stand alone as sentences, but the semicolons show you these two things are going to be connected.”