Question

Which has a stronger pause: a dash or a semicolon?

Answer 1

they should be relatively equal in length and have the same grammatically equal structure

Answer 2

A semicolon has only one function, really.
It joins two sentences together.

Answer 3

For example,

\(\Large \color{#006000 }{ \displaystyle\rm I ~~don't~~fish\color{red}{;}~~I~~am~~not~~stupid. }\)

Answer 4

I would excpet that making a new sentence is a "stronger pause" if I am correctly interpreting your actual question.

Answer 5

here are some more resources:

http://www.grammar-monster.com/punctuation/using_semicolons.htm
http://www.grammar-monster.com/punctuation/using_dashes.htm