Is this right? I thought that aside from something like this:
He had some dogs; he ran to the beach; he drowned.
that you are only supposed to put commas before and's, so's, and but's, etc.
But I often see people doing this:
I was carrying twins; but I had a miscarriage.
I only had salad; but I threw up.
I thought I liked him; but now I can't stand him.
How is this right? Shouldn't these be commas? This makes semicolon use even more confusing, because at least before you supposedly "knew" where commas always went and there were no semicolon exceptions:
I made sure he was comfortable, then left.
I sounded all right; I just made sure though.
Keeping to this convention is certainly safe, but howcan one supposed to know when exactly there are unarguably two independent clauses and why they should be semicolon separated vs. period separated? I ask because people also often do this.
I'm sure we've all been to the park. But then the beach. And the park. And mall as well.
And sometimes they'll do this as well:
I'm heavily-wounded; would you go get me some bandages?
And another weird one I've seen:
Here's my pet; Fluffy.
Shouldn't there be a colon at most, if anything at all?
Basically the correct use of English is a complicated tangle that I can never get perfect. I ask this because I've read extensively on semicolon usage, but keep on coming across strange, possibly incorrect, usages and have to re-evaluate my stance endlessly.
