My disagreement has to do with designations. And, but, and for are coordinative conjunctions. So is not. So is a subordinate, in the category with however and therefore. Gerald 

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On Mar 14, 2015, at 1:08 PM, Hancock, Craig G <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

The corpus of contemporary American English lists 169,326 instances of comma followed by so. Even compensating for "so that" uses, it's clearly the norm. They also list 1,829 instancesa of semicolon followed by "so," enough to convince me that it's a reasonably common option.

    As I said in an earlier post, "so" can be used in ways that don't subordinate the  clause that follows. I can't think of a reasonable reason to require or forbid a semi-colon ahead of it. Apparently, there are plenty of writers and copy editors out there who accept both. 


Craig

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Turner, Tildon L. <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2015 1:48 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ATEG Digest - 11 Mar 2015 to 12 Mar 2015 (#2015-22)
 
Hi Gerald,

I would have to disagree with your disagreement.  I know of no grammar text or style manual in use at my college or private language schools where I have taught that ever states that any punctuation other than the comma is expected with coordinating conjunctions.  You certainly could use a semicolon, but that is usually used with adverbial conjunctions such as "I missed the bus; therefore, I had to walk to work."

Til



From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of GERALD W WALTON [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2015 10:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ATEG Digest - 11 Mar 2015 to 12 Mar 2015 (#2015-22)

I disagree with "It is very hot outside today, so I'm not going to wear a jacket", which typically does take a comma. I think it typically takes a semicolon.
Gerald
 
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