: Re: Punctuation help needed -- first-time novelist I am a first-time novelist and have finished my first novel that I hope to self-publish at the end of the year. My book is finished apart from

@Fox6458700

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"Those things I said; I didn't mean any of it."

(Off-topic, maybe, but I'd go w/ "...didn't mean any of THEM." since THINGS is plural.)

As has been mentioned, a semi-colon divides two independent clauses. That means that you COULD use a period in the same position.

So a semicolon is not correct for what(I think) you mean here. "Those things I said," is only a complete sentence if you intend to say "I said those things," just as you COULD put the object(THINGS) first in a sentence such as "To market we go." Yoda does it all the time, so it must be right.;)

But if you intend for your entire sentence to MEAN "I didn't mean those things I said."(subject is I, THINGS is the object, & the phrase I SAID modifies THINGS) then you should go w/ comma or ellipses or possibly em-dash...OR just reword the sentence to say "I didn't mean those things I said."

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