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The usual form for using interjections involves following them with a comma, period, or exclamation point. For example...

"Well, I honestly have no idea."
"Dude! Where's my car!"
"Wow. I have nothing to say to that."

You get the idea. So! Can one use a semicolon after an interjection? I had never seen it done, prior to today, and I was curious.

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I'd advise against it. The semicolon is conventionally used between independent sentences linked in thought, or in enumerations. Using them in the examples you gave would look rather unusual; I expect that you will not find many of those in educated writing.

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  • Then again, how likely would you be to find interjections at all in educated writing, unless it's something like a novel where you're trying to represent typical speech patterns?
    – Alex
    Commented Jan 16, 2011 at 7:11
  • @Alex: There are all kinds of literary genres that may be of interest to the OP, such as the novels you mentioned, or letters, orations, you name it... Latin literature, which has been selected and trimmed by the choices of copyists for two thousand years, still has plenty of interjections across many genres.
    – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jan 16, 2011 at 7:25
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No, you cannot do that. Semicolons are used to separate independent clauses. Interjections and semicolons are mutually exclusive. It's better if you use the exclamation marks to emphasize the expression, if that's what you intend to do. Otherwise, I would not recommend it. I hope this can be useful for you.

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