Is this a right use of a semicolon?

Anonymous wrote:

Hi, I have a sentence below for your check-up for a proper semicolon use. He wears shoes with socks, on expensive one; but I prefer loafers myself. I think I read somewhere that you can not use a semicolon with "but"?

I suppose it should be: "He wears shoes with socks, an expensive one; but I prefer loafers myself."

You can use a semicolon to connect two sentences having a semantically intimate relation. All the sentences below given are correct as far as grammar concerns, but which one do you think best?
     (1) "He wears shoes with socks, an expensive one; but I prefer loafers myself."
     (2) "He wears shoes with socks, an expensive one, but I prefer loafers myself."
     (3) "He wears shoes with socks, an expensive one. But I prefer loafers myself."

paco

Generally, you should not use a conjunction after a semicolon.

An unrelated comment - "an expensive one" is obviously singular, but both shoes and socks are plural. So the sentence has an error unrelated to the semicolon issue.

I guess the questioner picked up this sentence from Grammar Station . Here they are teaching how to punctuate sentences and phrases, but I agree they are making two serious or stupid mistakes here. The first one is the grammatical error that GG pointed out. The second one is the redundant use of the coordinator "but". A semicolon works either "and" or "but" per se. I have a feeling  the Grammar Station, as the whole, is a site useful to ESL students. But as far as this page is concerned, I have to admit the instruction there is not correct.

paco

The semicolon is wrong there.  You need a comma because you are joining two independant clauses.  He wears shoes with socks, but I prefer loafers myself.  Or, you could have written: He wears shoes with socks; I prefer loafers myself.  The semicolon negates the need for a conjunction.