Human: I've always been a little confused about the difference between a comma and a semicolon. Can you explain it? Assistant: 
A comma is used to separate items in a list, while a semicolon is used to separate independent clauses within a sentence. For example, "The dog ran after the cat, which was chasing a mouse." In this case, the commas separate the words "dog," "cat," and "mouse" into three separate items in a list, while the semicolons separate each of those three items into two separate parts of the sentence.