Hey! It’s Liz (and Elizabeth!) here. So you've mastered the semicolon. Well done, you! We’re so proud of you. Go help yourself to a cookie. When you get back from your snack, we're going to talk about the cousin of the semicolon, the colon (the grammar kind).
What is a Colon?
While colons can be intimidating at first, they’re lovely, distinguished punctuation marks that are quite easy to use once you get the hang of them.
Before we begin, though, there are a few things to remember when using this wonderful punctuation mark:
- Do not use a white space before the colon.
Correct:
Incorrect : - Do not follow a colon with a hyphen dash.
Correct:
Incorrect:-
Now that’s out of the way, let’s dig a little deeper into how to use colons correctly.
How to use Colons in Grammar
There are several ways you can use colons in your writing. Let's look at them in more detail.
Elaboration
The first, and perhaps most common way, to use a colon is to provide a definition or explanation of circumstances.
For example:
Rose stopped mid-sentence when the realization hit her: Mark didn't like her guinea pig.
Style guides debate when to capitalize the first word after the colon. The Chicago guide dictates that the first word is only capitalized if two or more sentences that are related to the original idea follow the colon. No matter which style you prefer, make sure to stay consistent.
Before Nouns or Noun Phrases
Similarly to above, you can also use a colon before a noun or a noun phrase.
For example:
Rose had one great love: her guinea pig.
Quotation
Colons are also used when setting up a quotation, especially particularly long ones.
For example:
She took a deep thought-breath before continuing: “And I will always have Lady Godiva to cheer me up when I'm having a depressing day.”
Lists
Finally, colons are used to introduce a list.
There were several reasons Mark didn't want to touch Lady Godiva: he was bitten by a guinea pig as a child, he was allergic to guinea pig dander, and he found her odor just the slightest bit unpleasant.
It's also important to remember that the introductory clause before the colon should be a complete thought (i.e. an independent clause).
Other Uses
There are a few other ways colons can be used, but these are less common than the ways listed above.
- Separating titles and subtitles. E.g. I’m obsessed with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 at the moment. (Note: You’ll use a colon here regardless of whether the title itself has a colon.)
- Writing ratios. E.g. At our house, humans outnumber guinea pigs 3:1.
- Writing the time. E.g. Right now, it is 3:15pm.
- Citing some religious texts. E.g. At Sunday school, we memorized John 3:16.
- To separate character names from their dialogue in screenplays.
Inverted Colons
While this may sound painful, inverted colons are just as easy to use as regular colons. You just need to flip it around so you’re being more specific and then more general.
For example:
Donuts, cakes, muffins: all of these can be found in a local bakery.
The inverted colon can sound a little stiffer than regular colons, though, so use with care.
Colon the Shots
Now that we’ve gone over the main uses of this great piece of punctuation, you can go forth and use them with confidence. Happy punctuating!
Do you like to use colons in your writing? Let us know in the comments!
PRACTICE
Tell the story of two friends who suddenly find themselves in a disagreement. Use colons to explain where the mental/emotional/pet-related disconnect occurs.
Write for fifteen minutes. When you're finished, post your practice in the Pro Practice Workshop.
And if you post, make sure to give some feedback to the other Practitioners!
Not a member yet? Join us here!
Buena suerte!
Liz Bureman has a more-than-healthy interest in proper grammatical structure, accurate spelling, and the underappreciated semicolon. When she's not diagramming sentences and reading blogs about how terribly written the Twilight series is, she edits for the Write Practice, causes trouble in Denver, and plays guitar very slowly and poorly. You can follow her on Twitter (@epbure), where she tweets more about music of the mid-90s than writing.
Elizabeth Nettleton is an author and editor currently based in Oxfordshire, England. An avid reader and writer since childhood, she was once so engrossed in her book that she ran into a lamppost.
There is nothing Elizabeth loves more than magic and getting lost in other worlds (except for her family, friends, and pets, of course!), so she primarily writes fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. When she's not reading or writing, you can find her playing with her kids, daydreaming, or trying not to die in a video game.
You can learn more about Elizabeth's projects on her website, or say hello to her on X here.
I’m really not sure if this is right. I think, except for the way it’s used with lists, I am going to avoid colons. They’re cute but too confusing, and semi-colons aren’t much better, maybe they’re even worse.
“They can’t lay eggs in the trees, John. It won’t work.” She was cleaning the chicken house as she spoke. It was a large chicken house about the size of a small log cabin.
“But they’re supposed to be free range. We’re a natural farm,” he said. Rubbing his temples and wondering if he was hearing things he thought: wasn’t she the one who wanted to get the Natural Farm certificate, and the hens, the same person was now getting ready to put his flea market finds into the hen house?
“Go get that big pile of junk that you had in the spare room and put it in this house, right now,” she said. “All of that junk goes out here: the tools, the chairs, the golf clubs, the archery equipment; and the tillers go, all of the tillers. And don’t forget the exercise equipment.”
“My tools, my furniture. What about the hens?” he said: he didn’t like animals taking precedence over his stuff, but he wasn’t sure that was happening here, because what was going on wasn’t at all clear to John.
“The hens?” “Where are they going to lay eggs. You don’t want them to use the trees and they can’t use the house if all my stuffs in there,” he said.
“You are going to build them a new coop, over there near that little oak, and those blackberry bushes. Fence all around it, the coop, the tree and the bushes. Then they can have the coop and the bushes and I won’t have to walk all though the woods looking for the eggs,” she said.
I hope you post more of this. I love the free-range-chicken hen-house drama. Great characterization!
Thanks Steph.
Liz, thank you for your support of the colon. Many writers brush aside the rules of punctuation. They consider them unimportant, in contrast to plot and scene. I contend they give rhythm to your writing by invoking stops and pauses. The period is the stop sign. The semicolon is the California rolling stop that will gain you a ticket from the least discerning policeman. The colon is a rolling stop, defensible in court. Like all useful writing tools, you should not leave your punctuation duty to your copy editor.
Ha, nice analogy, Dane.
I enjoy your blog thoroughly. This is the first time I’ve ventured to post anything, though. My scenario may seem childish and a bit raw, so I apologize up front. I am a speech communication major–who likes to write and wants to improve–and I enjoy learning about communication and relationship dynamics, especially between girls/women. Most recently, my interest has turned to aggression in girls. That’s why this came to mind. So, here goes:
“Marie spent endless hours skimming through Facebook to read the latest happenings with her friends. Heaven forbid she ever pick up the phone to converse one-to-one: “This is faster,” she reasoned. Then, as if she had been legswept from behind, she saw it: “Marie puts out to any guy who pays attention to her.” It was Connie–Marie’s best friend–who had commented on Layla’s wall.
Furiously, Marie retorted, “And what about you, Connie? Weren’t you just saying the other night how you felt bad because you had been with three different guys in two nights? Talk about putting out. Where do you get your energy?” In a flash, Connie fired off a response, as if she had been crouching in the trenches waiting for Marie to step on the landmine remark. What ensued was a 15-minute, no-holds barred Facebook wall war for all to see and join. Marie’s wounds were deep. She couldn’t believe what was happening: her best friend backstabbed her, a former boyfriend accused her of being trashy, and her worst enemy chimed in every couple of comments with a resounding “LM_AO!”
She picked up the phone to call Marie before slamming it back down and fuming to herself: “What the h___! This would only matter if I wanted to continue the friendship. Whatever! I’ve put up with too much from her! I’m done! But I will get even. Just wait, Connie. You’ll regret this day for the rest of your life. The skeletons in your closet are coming to life.”
I can’t comment on the colon use here. I’m a basically a punctuation flunkey. I have to say how much I love some of your figures of speech though. “legswept from behind”, “as if she had been crouching in the trenches waiting for Marie to step on a a landline”, and the skeletons in your closet are coming to life”. I love all of them. They pulled me right along. I think your topic is very compelling and we need to hear more about the kind of destructive long range interaction. I really hope you post again. You can learn to write but you can’t learn to make up great figures of speech. I think they come from the way we talk and what we hear people around us saying. I love colorful speech any way it’s handed to me, writing, speaking, whatever; and you have it by the pen full here.
I liked your scene, too. You have an easy-to-read style.
Thanks for joining us, Rosemary. 🙂 Where do you go to school?
You’ve done an excellent job here. There are few things more strange, fascinating, and unfortunate these days than a catfight on facebook. It’s like watching a car wreck. You can’t look away. You’ve done a great job showing one at it’s worst.
I don’t know if this snippet quite captures the disagreement at hand, but I did appreciate the exercise. It helped me key in on a small, pivotal moment in the scene. (And it made me jump into the long put-off revision of this chapter!) Thanks!:
“Surely you must have seen her before. I would imagine you’ve crossed paths with just about everyone who lives on this lake,” Doc said.
Rex shook his head. “Not her.”
“You’ll need to come up with better than that for the police,” Doc said. “You left the lodge, found the body – which was not exactly on the beaten path, I might add – and hauled her in with your own gaff hook. ”
“Hey, that’s not quite how it-”
Doc held up a hand and interrupted. “You know that; I know that. But all the police will see is the blood on your hands. Now think, Rex. What do you know about her?”
God, he just needed sleep. No, first, a shot of whiskey. Then sleep. He searched for some decent detail to offer, anything to get him out of standing there like a slack-jawed bull moose in a spring meadow. Doc was right. Their mysterious guest, their patient, the victim, was not long for this world. There was bound to be an investigation. He would swear that she wasn’t from these parts, but a good hunch is good for nothing on the witness’ stand.
He methodically pushed against a loose molar with his tongue as he thought. The long winters took their toll on a smile, but so far, his teeth had always tightened up again when spring brought new ramps to fry up and fresh leaves for bog tea. He might lose this one though. After all, without her falsies, his mum smiled like a newborn babe, and Phyllis had the mouth of a jack-o-lantern.
He pushed the lantern to the edge of the nightstand and kneeled to get a better look at the young woman’s face as she slept, still as death, on the bunk before him. Using his thumb, he gently rolled down her lower lip: a full set of pearly whites. He tucked the blanket around her shoulders and turned back to the doctor.
“There’s no way she’s from up here. She’s got all her teeth, eh?”
Doc’s lips pulled back in a surprised smile in which Rex could not see any gaps. “Well, now, there’s a start.”
This is so well done, Steph. There’s mystery, suspense, doubt, and then a creative solution delivered in a unique way. I’m always impressed by your writing, Steph. Good job!
Thank you for reading, Joe. This chapter has been a long-fought battle. I’m glad to get the feedback that it’s shaping up.
Jack’s sun-bronzed face suddenly faded into the same color as the moon hiding behind the wispy gray clouds: It was obvious that he was upset. The only color left on his face was the crimson red that was pulsating through his oversized ears. He stood shirtless on his front porch staring in disbelief at his old friend Dave.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen this way, Jack,” Dave said. “It was supposed to be a joke.”
Jack collapsed into the front porch swing and buried his face in his hands. Dave silently stepped back a few feet just in case Jack decided to lunge at him. After a few awkward moments, Jack stood up and walked towards Dave. His voice quivered as he continued interrogating his long time neighbor: “How in the world, could this be a joke? How would anyone in their right mind see this as funny?
“I realize it’s not funny now, but in my head, I just thought…”
“You just thought?” Jack interrupted: “Dave you weren’t thinking. There was no intelligent reasoning going on when you came up with this little scheme!”
“Please let me explain,” Dave pleaded, taking another step toward the stairs.
“Wait!” Jack shouted. “I don’t need an explanation from you and here’s why: you’re a lying SOB, you’re a traitor, and you’re out of time. You can save your lame excuses for the judge when I call the cops and have you arrested!”
Jack reached for his cell phone to place the call. In a panic, Dave tried to grab the phone from Jack’s hands. As the two men wrestled for possession of the phone, they lost their footing and tumbled over the porch railing. As Jack’s head hit the ground, Dave heard the crack.
“Jack, Jack!” Dave said with a fury of desperation. There was no response. He watched the color fade from Jack’s ears: his friend was gone.
Dave took a moment to gather his wits: he decided he needed to get rid of Jack’s body. He found the keys to Jack’s car and loaded the body into the trunk. He grabbed some black garbage bags and a shovel and threw them in the back seat. Just as he started to leave, he suddenly remembered his practical joke-turned-bad. He reached down and picked up the deflated whoopee cushion from the porch swing and tossed it in the trunk as well. It was vitally important that he dispose of all the incriminating evidence.
Great opening paragraph, Tom. So vivid!
And the action is incredible. We’re left wondering, what was the joke? What was it? What could warrant such a reaction?
The fight might be a bit too much, not that it’s unbelievable they would fight or even that it could be bad. Maybe I just didn’t believe that it would be so easy to break someone’s back.
And the whoopie cushion is a little silly. Why would Jack react so strongly to a whoopie cushion? Was there a girl around and was he completely embarrassed? Either way, you’d need to set up why Jack was so mad.
The principle, though, and basic structure of your story is excellent. The joke itself SHOULD be something ridiculous like you have it. And I love the contrast between the silliness of the joke and the extreme fallout that comes from it. This could be a really excellent short story if it was in a little longer format. Great job, Tom!
HaHa! Thanks Joe. Just remember, you only give us 15 minutes to be brilliant. So as it got down to the wire, I realized I couldn’t come up with a brilliant climatic conclusion, so I went for the absurd 🙂
HaHa! Thanks Joe. Just remember, you only give us 15 minutes to be brilliant. So as it got down to the wire, I realized I couldn’t come up with a brilliant climatic conclusion, so I went for the absurd 🙂
I know I know I know. I’m just saying, this thing has a lot of potential.
Good post, Liz, and I love the headline. Very snappy. Would you address “first” v. “firstly” in usage. Is this personal preference? I notice you use “firstly” here and it sounds correct to my ear, but I typically use first, but maybe that’s presuming a second?