The Semicolon and Other Eccentricities of [My Approach To] the English Language

In a recent discussion on John Papola's Facebook page about the semicolon, I mentioned that they reminded me of apostrophes in some situations:

"I've always considered [the semicolon] a distant relative of the apostrophe, at least when the apostrophe is used to make a contraction. They serve much the same kind of function, IMHO."

After one of the posters seemed perplexed, I went back and re-read my statement, and realized that (without context), much of what I'd written did not seem to make sense. So I attempted to establish that context:

"A semicolon will save a writer one space over the other method, which can sometimes be juuust enough to keep your sentence from spilling over to the next line. That consideration is sometimes the sole determinant as to whether I will use a contraction."

That sounds better, relatively, but still seems pretty weak. After ruminating on it for a bit, I realized my [over-?]appreciation for the semicolon's contractionary ability is probably misplaced, and not at all based in any kind of reason or objective rationality.

I have a number of eccentricities when writing, and one of the biggies relates to structure....

[incomplete]