According to Fowler (The King's English), there was a time when the difference between , ; : . was merely quantitative (which explains the name `semicolon').
By the way, you made me note that 'full-stop' is British English and 'period' is American English. As some of us prefer to write in International English - "OED", or "British spelling with -ize graecisms" in international contexts, I have never considered if there is some solid orientation also about terminology - 'full-stop' vs. 'period', 'lift' vs. 'elevator'...
I think it's a decent compromise. All the Zs make it look weird to British readers, and all the Us make it look weird to Americans.
https://www.un.org/dgacm/en/content/editorial-manual/punctua... ("full stop").
I was in college only ten years ago, and my English professor’s key insight to punctuation is that it’s to define framing and tempo for your sentences.
That the sequence you listed is the pause count — similar to different empty spaces in music. Punctuation is just the negative space to frame your thoughts!
And perhaps a bit of tonality.
This discussion makes it painfully clear to me that I over-punctuate. I mean, I knew I leant more towards elaborate sentence-construction than is fashionable; I've never liked txt-speak, and my thumbs are too fat and flabby for operating miniature virtual keyboards.
I try to write literate emails. That is also unfashionable, apparently, but I think it's considerate to the reader to use the expressive power of the language. In fact emails now seem to mostly be an alternative channel for sending txts. I think this is because of mobile apps that present the same UI for txts and emails.
So I send a carefully-considered email, with paragraphs and all that, and I get back a reply of the form "Yes! <emoticon> <emoticon>".
On semi-colons, I use them to append a clause with sentence structure (roughly subject, main verb, object) to the main part of a sentence, while keeping the two clauses together as a single "thought".
It also is a type of vocal intention. Are you acquainted with John Cleese playing the "Hungarian gentleman with phrase book" in the Monty Python sketch? «I will not buy this record [mounting pause, then release] it is scratched». The first part is preliminary, incomplete, it requires the second, expressed as a release after the mounting premise: the sentence is pronounced as having a colon (I cannot check the exact sample right now - that is how I remember it).
You can imagine the difference if it were pronounced as a dash, as a more emotionally neutral interpretation of the sentence, not stressing the implications of "the record being scratched", could bring. With colon you make the first part an incomplete premise that depends on the second part to finally gain meaning or informational value or completeness, reaching to conclusions; with dash with the second part you provide the detail that enrich the content of the first part. As a vocal intention, the musicality of the syllables would change (e.g., in «it is scratched», high-high-low vs. low-low-high), and the pause would become more of a mid-air jump suspension. (Unfortunately I do not have other examples to provide on the spot).
There can be correspondence between natural vocal intentions and punctuation - as is understandable, since punctuation very probably mimics the communicational relations implied in the acting of speech, and both are a consequence of the organization of thought.
It sounds as if you are saying that /colon/ is a pause, because in your Cleese reference, he pronounces a /colon/. If that's what you meant, then are you not begging the question? You assume that his pause was a /colon/, and conclude that /colon/ means a pause.
There is no assumption: it is an obstension. There is no conclusion: it remains an obstension. That I mentioned of Cleese's acting, is an example.
I fail to see how you could read that pseudo-logic in that post. Do not use that poor pattern as a universal key: it is not.