Semicolons are often misunderstood, much like an angsty teen or the ending of The Sopranos. The semicolon is a useful punctuation mark that allows writers to express their ideas in more meaningful ways. Given its appearance, it should come as no surprise that its usage falls somewhere between a period and a comma.

There are three main ways to use semicolons, the most common of which is to connect two independent sentences that are part of the same thought. Here’s a pair of sentences that could benefit from a semicolon: The blue whale is the largest animal to have ever existed. It’s an aquatic mammal.

Notice that while each sentence has the components of a complete sentence and can exist as an independent thought, the second sentence is quite abrupt. The flow leaves something to be desired. However, if you add a semicolon (The blue whale is the largest animal to have ever existed; it’s an aquatic mammal), the two independent clauses form a more interesting sentence.

There are several do’s and don’ts to follow with semicolons. Never use a capital letter immediately after a semicolon unless the word is a proper noun, and don’t use a conjunction (“and,” “or,” “but,” etc.) either. Do, however, consider adding an adverb to add a bit of flourish to your writing: The blue whale is the largest animal to have ever existed; interestingly, it’s an aquatic mammal. (Proceed with caution, as we shared advice in a recent edition on how to judiciously employ adverbs.)

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The second way to use a semicolon is when writing out lists that already include several commas. In the following example, the city/state combos already have commas, so the added semicolons make the overall sentence more clear: My favorite U.S. cities are New Orleans, Louisiana; Los Angeles, California; Denver, Colorado; and Paris, Texas.

A third usage for a semicolon is the cheekiest, as it forms the eyes of the winking emoticon ;). Perhaps these old-school text smileys have been overshadowed by fancier emojis, but I’m holding on to the 🙂 and 😉 as long as I can. 

In the United States, December 26 is just the day after Christmas. Lots of people hit the stores in search of big sales, while others stay in to play with new toys and recover from their Christmas food coma. But in Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and some other countries that were colonized by the British, the day is a holiday called Boxing Day. Contrary to what the name might suggest to Americans, it’s not a day for watching old highlights of Muhammad Ali. Instead, the holiday was founded on the premise of wealthier families giving gifts to those less fortunate. Boxing Day falls on the day after Christmas each year, unless the 26th is on a weekend day, in which case the public holiday (the official observation for the day off work) can be pushed to December 27 or 28.

The name of the holiday has a few possible origin stories. They’re all plausible and contribute to the overall meaning and celebration of Boxing Day, but there are different interpretations of how the name originally came to be.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) purports the phrase was coined in 1743 to give name to the tradition of tradespeople and employees receiving a Christmas box (which was traditionally a sum of money) from their employers. They would have been busy working on Christmas Day for their wealthier employers, so the Christmas boxes were traditionally distributed on December 26 — hence the holiday’s name.

According to the BBC, the term “Boxing Day” was popularized during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837 to 1901), when the still-unofficial holiday was practiced by richer families boxing up gifts the day after Christmas and handing them out to the poor. It was also common at that time for wealthy families to give their servants a box of gifts and have them take the day off, so they could share the gratuities with their families (supporting the OED etymology).

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Boxing Day was made an official bank holiday in both England and Wales in 1871; it wasn’t until 1974 that Scotland followed suit. While literal Christmas boxes given out by rich employers aren’t common anymore, lots of people practice the spirit of the holiday by giving back money, gifts, or their time in support of those less fortunate each Boxing Day. However, we won’t judge if you spend part of your  Boxing Day eating leftovers and watching movies on the sofa.

Some words perfectly call to mind a specific holiday, such as “independence” for the Fourth of July, “spooktacular” for Halloween, and “Yule” for Christmastime and holiday joy. But while the term “Yule” is commonly dusted off and busted out each December, it takes a little digging to suss out the literal definition.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), “Yule” can mean a few things. Its original and now largely obsolete definition is simply “December or January.” That was the primary meaning a thousand years ago, but around the 14th century, the term was redefined as specifically having to do with “Christmas and the festivities connected therewith” — a meaning that it largely maintains today.

“Yule” comes from the Old English geol, which came from the Old Norse jol — a pagan midwinter festival celebrated since at least the 10th century. Over time, Christians adopted some of the traditions (using holly and mistletoe, ritualized gift giving, the Yule log) from the Anglo-Saxon festivities to use in the 12-day Nativity season, which begins each year on December 25. As English evolved, so too did the term geol, which was anglicized as “Yule” in the 1500s.

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Speaking of the Yule log, long before there was a Netflix video of a burning log to stream in fireplace-less homes, “Yule log” came into the 17th-century English lexicon. In the 19th century, using “Yule” for the Christmas season saw a resurgence among British writers, specifically referring to  the “Christmas of Merrie England.” Today, whether you’re celebrating with a log, a tree, presents, or mistletoe, “Yule” acts as a catchall term around Christmas.