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A couple days ago I posted on semicolons, with a note that I’d decided to split my original post, covering both semicolons and colons, into two parts once I realized that the semicolon discussion was getting out of control. Okay, so now for colons.  These are a lot more fun than semicolons 🙂
The first thing to know about the colon is that it is a mark of “enumeration.” To “enumerate” is to count off all the specific items in a collection. Hence the “numer” in the term, as in the word “numeral.” To continue with the math metaphor, I also think of a colon as being similar to an “equals” sign. Whatever comes after the colon equals whatever preceded it, but in more specific detail.
There are two main times you should use colons to punctuate sentences. The first is to introduce a list/quote/idea, and the second is to join two independent clauses with an appositional relationship.
Using a colon to introduce a list, quote, or idea — You already no doubt have used the colon with lists. But what you may not know is that you need to precede the colon with the THING (a noun or noun phrase) that is subsequently being listed. A common colon error is to put the colon in front of the list but after a verb. Think about it, though. If the colon is an equals sign, then how can a verb = nouns or adjectives? Here is a list of nouns.
WRONG: We need: milk, butter, and eggs.
RIGHT: We need the following ingredients: milk, butter, and eggs.
RIGHT: We need the following ingredients to make cookies: milk, butter, and eggs.
The THING we need is “ingredients.” “Ingredients” is a noun, as are “milk,” “butter,” and “eggs.”
Here is colon preceding a list of adjectives.
WRONG: He was: cold, wet, and hungry.
RIGHT: He was miserable: cold, wet, and hungry.
“Miserable” is an adjective, and so are “cold,” “wet,” and “hungry.”
You also no doubt know about using a colon to introduce a quote or idea. I’ve been doing it with the words “WRONG” and “RIGHT” in this blog post. First comes the word “WRONG,” then the colon, and then the specific quote/idea that is wrong. So “WRONG” = this sentence.
With dialogue or quoted statements within a text, a speaker’s words are usually introduced with a comma. However, you can use a colon for emphasis if you like. And a colon would always be used if you preceded the person’s exact words with a noun (or noun phrase), as in the third sentence below.
The President said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
The President said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
One phrase in President Roosevelt’s inaugural address stands out memorably: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Using a colon to join independent clauses with an appositional relationship — A colon is sort of like a prism: plain light goes in one side, and all the colors included in its wavelength come out the other. In other words, the colon refracts general information into its more specific iteration.
If you think about the colon as an equals sign or a prism, then it’s a cinch using it to join two independent clauses correctly. The first independent clause is the general statement, and the second clause IS the specific enumeration/iteration/naming of that idea.
One thing is clear: Mary is well qualified to be president.
Or, the first clause is the general statement, and the second clause EXPLAINS that statement.
Everyone wants Mary to be elected: she is the most qualified candidate.
Should you capitalize the first letter of what follows a colon or not? This is a usage issue, and experts/style guides don’t agree on what is “correct.” My own practice is to use the lower case unless I want to highlight/emphasize the element that follows the colon. I also use one space to follow a colon, unless I’m capitalizing the first word that follows it. Then I use two spaces.
Using the colon correctly is like learning to ride a bike.  Once you get the concept, you really can’t make a mistake. Plus, it’s a “smart” mark of punctuation:  Using it well elevates your writing style a notch.
The most popular post I’ve written so far has been the one titled “What’s the difference between grammar, punctuation, and mechanics?” It gets at least one view per day, and most days it tops my list of most-viewed posts.
Because there seems to be interest, I decided it might be helpful to post more often on this type of topic. Arbitrarily, and mostly because it’s one of my pet peeves, I decided to focus on the semicolon first. Colons and semicolons fall under the umbrella of punctuation. The rules regarding their use are fairly straightforward, so writers who know them possess an excellent tool for controlling the “correctness” of their writing. I was going to write about both punctuation marks in one blog post, but it got to be so long that I’m splitting it up.
Semicolons are far more misused than colons, so let’s start with them. First of all, I rarely use semicolons myself. There are really only two situations that call for them, and only one of them is really necessary.  And that one is rare. But if you’re reading this post, you possibly DO want to use them, so here are the occasions where it’s appropriate to employ them.
1) Semicolons can be used in lists to distinguish among internal units that contain commas. This is the rare occasion mentioned above.
Leaders of the civic organization include Mary Smith, president; John Brown, vice-president; June Morgan, treasurer; and Patrick Kenshaw, secretary.
2) Semicolons can be used to connect two independent clauses. An independent clause is a group of words with a subject and a verb that can stand alone as a complete thought.
It stopped raining.
We went outside.
If you want to combine these two independent clauses into a single sentence, you have a few options. One is to join them with a coordinating conjunction.
It stopped raining, so we went outside.
Note that when you use a conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so) to join two clauses, you put a comma before the conjunction. You don’t use a comma if you’re just joining two words or phrases, as in the following examples.
Mary enjoys reading and writing.
Mary enjoys reading books and writing poetry.
Mary enjoys reading books about birds and writing poetry about whales.
Back to the unnecessary semicolons. Remember how you need a comma before the conjunction when joining two independent clauses? Well, sometimes people “hear” the two independent clauses as being so closely related that they don’t use a conjunction between them.
You can’t just have two independent clauses running up against each other, though. If you have no punctuation at all, you have the error called a “run-on sentence,” or what is nowadays referred to as a “fused sentence.” If you use just a comma (but no conjunction), you have the error known as a “comma splice.”
WRONG (run-on/fused sentence): It stopped raining we went outside.
WRONG (comma splice): It stopped raining, we went outside.
To correct these errors, you’d want to employ a semicolon between the independent clauses.
RIGHT: It stopped raining; we went outside.
I almost never use this kind of semicolon, however. If I were to think of “speaking” these two thoughts as one sentence, I would use the conjunction (and, so) between them to show the relationship of the two ideas.
In a rare case, if I were exasperated with someone who kept asking why we had gone outside, I might answer in a way that put the two clauses together without a conjunction. But then my combination of the two clauses would reveal how annoyed I was that my questioner couldn’t make that simple connection. My intonation would probably rise on the word “raining” and fall again rapidly on the “we went outside.”
But actually, even in that case, I’d probably use a comma instead of the semicolon. Yes, that would technically be a “comma splice” error, but I think the comma would better create the “sound” I was after in readers’ minds’ “ears.” The semicolon seems too stuffy to sound annoyed 🙂
Additionally, the parallel nature of the two phrases might make my “comma splice” not an error at all. Consider this famous quote from Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Because both independent clauses are nearly identical in their structure, the comma acts as a mirror to highlight the symmetry of the two ideas even more. So if I were dealing with (and regrettably lost patience with) someone who couldn’t grasp how highly related the two ideas of “it stopped raining” and “we went outside” were, using the comma could possibly emphasize the connection even more.
3) Semicolons can be used to join two independent clauses when the second one starts with a conjunctive adverb.  This situation is actually a variant of above situation (#2). When you connect two independent clauses with a conjunctive adverb, you MUST use a semicolon to mark the spot where one independent clause ends and the other begins. Otherwise, you have a comma splice.
Wikipedia lists many conjunctive adverbs in its entry on the topic. In my experience, the word “however” is the most frequently used of these.
WRONG (comma splice): The rain did not stop, however, we went outside anyway.
RIGHT: The rain did not stop; however, we went outside anyway.
Seems simple. But people can get tripped up on the placement of that conjunctive adverb.
Everyone knows that whenever “however” is used in a sentence, it needs to be set it off with commas.
Most of that writer’s novels are quite short, however.
However, most of that writer’s novels are quite short.
Most of that writer’s novels, however, are quite short.
Building on that, let’s say you want to connect two independent clauses, and one of them contains the word “however.” As shown in these examples, sometimes the “however” comes at the beginning of a sentence; sometimes it comes at the end. You need to be clear on the meaning of YOUR sentence in order to punctuate correctly.
NO PUNCTUATION (confusing . . . and a run-on sentence): Mary is very devoted to her church however she is well qualified to be president of the civic organization.
Is Mary well qualified BECAUSE she is devoted to her church? Or is she well qualified DESPITE that fact? Suppose you read the following in the organization’s newsletter:
(well qualified) BECAUSE: The candidates bring different strengths and weaknesses to the campaign. Mary is devoted to her church, however; she is well qualified to be president.
(well qualified) DESPITE: The candidates bring different strengths and weaknesses to the campaign. Mary is devoted to her church; however, she is well qualified to be president.
Sometimes people convey the wrong meaning in their sentences simply because they are so used to putting the semicolon in front of the “however.”  Usually “however” is found at the beginning of the independent clause that contains the contrary thought. But sometimes it comes at the end. You have to make sure you’re splitting the independent clauses in the right place to convey the correct meaning.
Personally, I’d avoid using a semicolon in this case.  You can just as easily write the two ideas out in separate sentences, which greatly reduces the risk that someone will misunderstand your meaning.
Mary is devoted to her church, however. She is well qualified to be president.
Mary is devoted to her church. However, she is well qualified to be president.
Need another reason to avoid using semicolons (except for that rare commas-within-a-list situation)? Semicolons are frequently misused in spots where commas, elipses, or dashes are called for.
WRONG: The night was dark; ominous.
RIGHT: The night was dark, ominous
OR: The night was dark . . . ominous.
WRONG: He saw the one thing he dreaded most; no, hated most.
RIGHT: He saw the one thing he dreaded most—no, hated most.
WRONG: Duct tape; that savior of otherwise-doomed repairs is always a key item in my toolkit.
RIGHT: Duct tape—that savior of otherwise-doomed repairs—is always a key item in my toolkit.
So I guess that’s it for the semicolon. It’s a mark I tend to avoid because I think my sentences are usually more clear and effective with other types of punctuation. Plus, if you don’t use the semicolon at all, you can avoid using it incorrectly 🙂
Because grammar and punctuation are so very context dependent, I would be happy to reply to any specfic questions or observations you might have. Just post them in the “comments” box at the end of this post, and I’ll respond as soon as I can.
Foggy morning in Milwaukee. You can barely make out the sun peeking over the corner of the building at center, a circle of light only a shade brighter than the surrounding mist. This is a color photo, by the way. No filters or Photoshop. Just a cool, gray start to the day.
(Hey, I just noticed something cool. If you tilt the screen one way, the sun gets more visibly light. And if you tilt it the other way, it gets more visibly dark, like a film negative.)
Seems like I’m always looking up. Does that make me an optimist? 🙂 Here’s what I saw during this morning’s coffee run.
From this angle, doesn’t the tree remind you at least a little of Samson pulling down the temple?
Our magnolia is in that transition between buds and leaves.  So many springs we hit the flowering stage just in time for stormy weather to send the blossoms pelting to the ground before we’re able to enjoy them. When it started raining a couple days ago, I figured we’d miss the show again this year.
But there are still plenty of flowers left, so I took this photo to capture them. So pretty 🙂
P.S. ~ It looks like a pair of sparrows has chased off the chickadees living in the hole/nest in one of the magnolia’s limbs. It has been a strangely humorous episode of ornithologic aggression to observe. Are sparrows higher in the pecking order, as it were? Because I’m seeing lots of posturing and chest-puffing assertiveness on the part of those sparrows, and the chickadees seem to have vanished. Sparrows are real bullies!
I’m allergic to tree pollen, and birch trees are just about the most allergenic. Plus I hate the way fallen pollen adheres to our shoes and gets tracked into the house every spring.Â
But I do love the look of those drooping catkins.  They remind me of party lanterns strung across a patio. Last night, illuminated by porch light in the gloaming (love that word :)), they were so striking against the twilight sky that I had to snap this photo.Â
Really liked the intersecting lines and distorted angles of the condensation trail, power lines, and downtown buildings.  So I had to take a photo 🙂Â
Just finished teaching and am ready to call it a day. Happy Tuesday evening!
Katherine Wikoff 