Is a semicolon the same as a question mark?

Q: I saw this sentence in an article about a court ruling on the Affordable Care Act: “Still, a remand for greater clarity on the scope of the judgment—to whom does it apply? can’t some parts of the ACA be severed?—may be in the cards.” Is it kosher to have two question marks within dashes?

A: Yes, a series of questions in the middle of a sentence, surrounded by dashes or parentheses, is punctuated in just that way. Each question begins with a lowercase letter and ends with a question mark, according to language  guides.

But if the series is at the end, and if the questions are complete clauses, you have a choice.

You can introduce the series with a dash and use lowercase letters: “Still, a remand for greater clarity on the scope of the judgment may be in the cards—to whom does it apply? can’t some parts of the ACA be severed?”

Or you can introduce the series with a colon and capitalize each question, which is a good idea if the individual questions are longer: “Still, a remand for greater clarity on the scope of the judgment may be in the cards: To whom does it apply? Can’t some parts of the ACA be severed?”

Questions in a series aren’t always complete clauses; they can be phrases or single words.

Pat’s grammar and usage book Woe Is I (4th ed.) cites this sentence: “Would Tina have to buy a new hair dryer? toothbrush? swimsuit?” And since the sentence as a whole is a question, you can use commas in the series and a question mark at the end: “Would Tina have to buy a new hair dryer, toothbrush, swimsuit?”

If we rephrased the sentence to put the questions in the middle, it would be punctuated like this: “Tina wondered what she’d have to buy—new hair dryer? toothbrush? swimsuit?—if her luggage didn’t turn up.”

The Modern Language Association, which publishes a stylebook that’s widely used by academic and scholarly writers, has this advice on its website: “Use lowercase letters to begin questions incorporated in series in a sentence.”

The MLA gives this example: “Should I punctuate a question contained in a sentence with a comma? with a colon? with a dash?” And again, we could rephrase it and put the questions in the middle: “He wondered what to use—a comma? a colon? a dash?—to punctuate a question in a sentence.”

Such mid-sentence questions can occur in a series or one at a time, and they can be found within sentences that are or are not questions in themselves. For instance, your example is a declarative sentence, not interrogative, though it has questions within it.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language calls these “medial questions” since they “occur medially, internally within a sentence.” The book adds: “Medial questions and exclamations do not normally begin with a capital letter except in the case of quotation.”

The Cambridge Grammar has these examples with single parenthetical questions enclosed within dashes and parentheses:

“She had finally decided—and who can blame her?—to go her own way.”

“Her son (you remember him, don’t you?) has just been arrested.”

And The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.) has these examples:

“Without further warning—but what could we have done to dissuade her?—she left the plant, determined to stop the union in its tracks.”

“The man in the gray flannel suit (had we met before?) winked at me.”

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Semicolons are punctuation marks used to separate parts of sentences. Use a semicolon in the following instances.

1. Two . Use a semicolon when separating two independent clauses that are not joined by a conjunction.

   Example: Jones (2014) argued that intelligence was fixed; Smith (2011) argued that ability could be fluid.

2. To join two independent clauses with a conjunctive adverb (e.g, "however," "therefore," "consequently," "nevertheless," "furthermore," "moreover"). Note that there is a semicolon before the conjunctive adverb and a comma after it.

   Example: This structure joins two independent clauses; moreover, it creates cohesion in the text by showing how one idea relates to another.

   Example: I had difficulty obtaining a large number of participants; however, I still reached saturation in the interviews.

3. Series. Use a semicolon to separate elements in a series that already contains commas.

   Example: Amy ordered three pizzas: one with pepperoni, sausage, and mushrooms; one with bacon, ham, and green peppers; and one with tomatoes, olives, and red peppers.

   Example: Many have claimed that the sky is blue (Hawking et al., 1994; Lima, 2003; Steinberg & Jordan, 2001).

For more information about semicolons, see the following links:

Also watch the Mastering the Mechanics 2 and 3 webinars. Semicolon usage is frequently discussed in these two webinars.