Why are the backslash and semicolon required with the find command's -exec option?

Question

I have begun to combine different commands in the linux terminal. I am wondering why the backslash and semicolon are required for a command such as:

find ./          


        

Answer 1

from "man find":

All following arguments to find are taken to be arguments to the command until an argument consisting of ';' is encountered.

find needs to know when the arguments of exec are terminated. It is natural to terminate a shell command with ; because also the shell uses this character. For the very same reason such a character must be escaped when inserted through the shell.