I often see people making sentences quite longer than I'm comfortable with, such as like this:
The dog ran, the dog fell, the dog dwelled; the dog didn't wish to be a part of such a place in his life; however, the dog did do his deed and carried on.
That is how I witness people with semicolons, and they're always making sentences longer and longer this way. It's wrong, isn't it? A semicolon used is to include a separate clause that does not stand well in a sentence of its own, yes?
If so, that example sentence above should be phrased as:
The dog ran, the dog fell, the dog dwelled. The dog didn't wish to be a part of such a place in his life; however, the dog did do his deed and carried on.
Alternatively, you could make it a bit different by carrying it on with a comma instead:
The dog ran, the dog fell, the dog dwelled. The dog didn't wish to be a part of such a place in his life, however, the dog did do his deed and carried on.
Basically, I want to know what the deal is here: Are those sentences with tons of semicolons that continue endlessly correct, am I wrong, or how do you accurately determine if the sentence should be snipped of semicolons?