The use of ;

Question

I want to write "During my free time, I go horseback riding, spend time with friends, exercise, read books and paint." but word wants there to be a semicolon after "riding", instead of just a comma. Seems wrong to me, but is it right?

The phrase that word wants me to write looks like this: "During my free time, I go horseback riding; spend time with friends, exercise, read books and paint."

Answer 1

Word is probably fooled by your using "riding" followed by "spend" (not "spending"). That's two mismatched concepts (not both gerunds, in this case). Word can assume a list of items and suggest a comma, only if it can recognize compatible list elements. If you had written "going riding, spending, etc" it would know what you meant.

This is correct. I've seen Word do this before. That being said, I ignore Word's grammatical observations half of the time. - enrique07, Jan 30, 2011

...but the match should be to "go" not to "riding" ..or? - Janice, Jan 30, 2011

Answer 2

You are separating items (that don't contain commas) in a list, so it should be a comma. Using a semicolon is wrong.

Answer 3

Thank you very much! All cleared up now.

Answer 4

MS Word can be funny. I would use a comma.