TwiztedClown
Really Really Experienced
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2002
- Posts
- 373
Hey, I was reading some threads and am trying to figure out the grammar rules for using : or ;.
Using : and ;
- Thread starter TwiztedClown
- Start date
Simon_Silver
Experienced
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Posts
- 76
A-ha!
Many people will probably tell you what I am about to tell you is incorrect. Don't listen to them, even the majority of grammarians get the basic rules of how to use these two pieces of punctuation _wrong_!
The CORRECT usage of the colon and semi-colon is in fact NOT what most people THINK it is, they are in essence only slight variations on the comma.
Think of them this way and you will not go far wrong...
English is in truth a musical language, our linguistic perimeters are based around poetry and song.
A comma "," measures a 1 'beat' pause in the flow of the sentence. This is fairly easy to understand.
Here is where most people go wrong: colons ":", and semi-colons ";", are basically the SAME THING, just _longer_.
A Semi-Colon ";", measures a TWO 'beat' pause in the flow of the sentence, and is best used for places where a character is gathering their thoughts or changing topic within the same sentence, as so many of us do.
A full colon ":", is a three beat pause in the flow of the sentence, and should be used primarily for lingering silences, interrogatives, and other places where most authors would incorrectly break the sentence with a "...". Be cautious with your uses of colons, because the confusion of our language from their misuse means that it is tempting to use them where a fall off break ("...") WOULD be aproprate, and since that is what the majority of people expect it is generally better when either could be used to go with breaking the sentence rather than the colon.
Hope that helped!
Many people will probably tell you what I am about to tell you is incorrect. Don't listen to them, even the majority of grammarians get the basic rules of how to use these two pieces of punctuation _wrong_!
The CORRECT usage of the colon and semi-colon is in fact NOT what most people THINK it is, they are in essence only slight variations on the comma.
Think of them this way and you will not go far wrong...
English is in truth a musical language, our linguistic perimeters are based around poetry and song.
A comma "," measures a 1 'beat' pause in the flow of the sentence. This is fairly easy to understand.
Here is where most people go wrong: colons ":", and semi-colons ";", are basically the SAME THING, just _longer_.
A Semi-Colon ";", measures a TWO 'beat' pause in the flow of the sentence, and is best used for places where a character is gathering their thoughts or changing topic within the same sentence, as so many of us do.
A full colon ":", is a three beat pause in the flow of the sentence, and should be used primarily for lingering silences, interrogatives, and other places where most authors would incorrectly break the sentence with a "...". Be cautious with your uses of colons, because the confusion of our language from their misuse means that it is tempting to use them where a fall off break ("...") WOULD be aproprate, and since that is what the majority of people expect it is generally better when either could be used to go with breaking the sentence rather than the colon.
Hope that helped!
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