There's another, less frequent use of the semi-colon that can really come in handy when you need it. If your sentence has a long list that involves commas not just to separate red, white, and blue but also to separate parts within each listed item, then you need semi-colons between the items. OK, that explanation probably didn't make sense. Here's an example:
Before the sale could be complete, the house had numerous problems to fix such as no gutters, downspouts, or drainage tiles; leaky faucets and rusted iron pipes; rotten, termite infested floor joists; and a roof with the old shake shingles, two more shingle layers over the top, and multiple patches of tar on the weak spots.
The list of items wrong with the house begins after the words "such as" and includes four items, as if I had said the flag was red, white, blue, and green. However, the first and fourth items have within them three separate parts requiring commas and the second item has two adjectives requiring a comma (that's another post I should make), so if I had put commas where I put semi-colons we would have a mess of commas! The semi-colons are big enough to show us where the four items are, and the little commas show us the parts within each item. This situation shouldn't come up often in your writing because sentences like this are drudgery to read.
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