Which sentence correctly uses the semicolon?
it was already late in the evening; and i wanted to go to bed. there was no reason to stay awake, since we knew that the power would not come back on until the morning. it had been a most unpleasant coincidence that the power outage had come when we had guests staying over; the entire house was full. still, most of our guests had been understanding about it; so there was, for the most part, good humor all around. staying on the second floor of the house were uncle john, aunt sally, cousin roger, pete, the twins, and myself. we had it worse than everyone on the first floor, all the windows in all the upstairs rooms were tinted; and there wasn’t enough moonlight in the first place.
a)it was already late in the evening; and i wanted to go to bed.
b) it had been a most unpleasant coincidence that the power outage had come when we had guests staying over; the entire house was full.
c) still, most of our guests had been understanding about it; so there was, for the most part, good humor all around.
d) we had it worse than everyone on the first floor, all the windows in all the upstairs rooms were tinted; and there wasn’t enough moonlight in the first place.

B) It had been a most unpleasant coincidence that the power outage had come when we had guests staying over; the entire house was full.

This is the correct answer because the semicolon is carrying out its function here: to join two independent clauses that are related to each other.

A, C and D are wrong because they all have conjunction following the semicolon: "and" and "so". And semicolons aren't used with conjunctions, as for they both perform the same function: to link two independent clauses. So when trying to connect two independent clauses, we can either use a semicolon or conjunction, not both at the same time.

in at least 150 words, discuss the tone of the narrator in "i stand here ironing," and explain how it impacts the telling of the story

1. read the following excerpt from franklin d. roosevelt's "fireside chat 19":

on the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerilla warfare against the germans in, let us say serbia or norway, us; that a successful russian offensive against the germans us; and that british successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

remember always that germany and italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the united states at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with britain or russia. and germany puts all the other republics of the americas into the same category of enemies. the people of our sister republics of this hemisphere can be honored by that fact.  

the true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. when we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. we americans are not destroyers — we are builders.

analyze the effectiveness of this excerpt. how does it function within the speech as a whole? how does the structure of the excerpt to convey the speech's purpose and key points? support your argument with evidence from the speech. (10 points)