« limited offer!! act now!! | Main | the dangers of spellcheckers »
August 25, 2006
the colon and how to use it
The colon. So simple, yet so misunderstood.
Here's a simple rule of thumb: a common use of the colon is to indicate a setup: payoff relationship. The set-up portion should be an independent clause (has all the grammatical parts to stand on its own as a sentence). The payoff portion can be anything--a single word, a phrase, a clause. Often, it's a list.
A common error is that the part of the sentence preceding the colon is not an independent clause. Unless the writer is using some kind of inverted construction ("space: the final frontier"), he has just committed an error.
CORRECT: I went to the store and bought many items: milk, eggs, and the ingredients for lasagna.
INCORRECT: My purchases included: milk, eggs, and the ingredients for lasagna.
CORRECT: My goals are to go to college and then to law school.
INCORRECT: My goals are: to go to college and then to law school.
Examples of incorrect colon usage abound. Please do NOT do your part in contributing to that abundance. Use the colon correctly!
(njs)
August 25, 2006 | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bfae553ef00d834e165e969e2
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference the colon and how to use it:
Comments
In grade school I was taught that a colon stands for the words "the following" or "as follows." To this day I say those words in my head every time I type a colon. If neither makes sense at that place in my sentence, I don't use a colon. If one does make sense there, I do.
Posted by: Sue Liemer | Aug 28, 2006 7:11:48 AM
