comma or semicolon with aside: refreshing; they... after all; but it

L

leetaicho

Member
Mexican Spanish
"The breeze wasn’t very refreshing; they were in the Forbidden Place after all, but it was definitely what she needed."

Is that sentence correct?

What I got bold is the sentence I had originally. I wanted to intersect that little fragment there, but I'm not sure how. I can't put a semicolon right before 'but', but the already placed semicolon indicates the rest is part of that next sentence rather than the original one, right?

In other words, this:

"The breeze wasn’t very refreshing; they were in the Forbidden Place after all; but it was definitely what she needed."

...Is not correct, right?

Then, should I not place everything together in a sentence and just separate them using periods?

Sorry if it sounds confusing ><

Thanks for the help.
 
    • I wonder what you mean by "after all". Is this the "after all" that shows that the sentence explains the one before it (tells why the breeze wasn't refreshing)? Or do you mean by "after all" "after all that they had done to get there"?

    I am asking, because if you mean the first, I would punctuate it differently, while if you mean the second, I would change the wording.
     
    'After all' explains the one before. You could say the Forbidden Place doesn't have nice air...Haha.

    So, now that that's solved, how would you punctuate it? With periods?

    Thanks for the help!
     
    The dash is your friend...
    "The breeze wasn’t very refreshing – they were in the Forbidden Place, after all – but it was definitely what she needed."

    I take it the Forbidden Place is an actual place, and not in China?
     
    In this case, seems to me that the second sentence and the third clause are tied more closely to the first part, than to each other:
    The breeze wasn’t very refreshing; they were in the Forbidden Place after all.

    The breeze wasn’t very refreshing, but it was definitely what she needed.
    ​
    However, the punctuation in your first version seems to me to tie the second sentence more closely to the third part than to the first.

    I would solve this by punctuating your inserted sentence as what it is, an idea inserted between the two parts of your original sentence. I would use dashes to do this:
    The breeze wasn’t very refreshing -- they were in the Forbidden Place after all -- but it was definitely what she needed.
    ​
    I don't consider myself an expert on punctuation. Someone else may have a better suggestion.

    Edit: Copyright is so much quicker. It is nice to see that we agree, I think.
     
    I believe you are having a problem defining the air quality of Forbidden Place by drawing attention to where they were rather than what was there. As an alternative to the dash I would try: "The breeze wasn’t very refreshing, a low quality of air in the Forbidden Place after all, but it was definitely what she needed."
     
    "The breeze wasn’t very refreshing, a low quality of air in the Forbidden Place after all, but it was definitely what she needed."

    That sounds wrong to me, I'd say "the air is of low quality in...". But, to me, your insertion changes the meaning of the sentence.

    This topic reminded me to post this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon
     
    I think your first sentence is fine as it is. You may use the semi-colon in place of a period when you want to link the ideas.

    But then it loses the connection to "but it was definitely what she needed", does it not?
     
    Instead of long dashes, as Copyright and Cagey suggested, you could use brackets (also known as parentheses), i.e. (they were in the Forbidden place, after all), but.....
     
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