Colons and Semicolons

You may know the colon as a rather unpleasant organ, but trust us: the punctuation mark is much more fun. The colon resembles two periods, one above the other. It looks like this: : Colons are used to connect a sentence with information that helps to explain it — just three sentences ago, we used it to connect "trust us" to "the punctuation mark is much more fun."

Often, the newly connected phrase or clause is a list of examples or a quote. "There are four sections to the website: the homepage, the articles, the games and applications, and the About Us section." "John said: 'I want to become a staff member of thewordiswhom.com!'" The colon can also be used to emphasize the information that follows. "I have only one thing to say to you: it's actually whom."

Additionally, colons have uses in analogies: one colon means "is to" or "are to," while two colons mean "as." This website : sublime :: our competitors : abhorrent. My, there are a lot of ways colons can be used!

The semicolon looks similar to a colon. It resembles a period above a comma. It looks like this: ; Semicolons can stand in for conjunctions, including but not limited to: "and," "but," "or," "nor," "for," "so," and "yet." In the sentence "I have a meeting; it's at 3 p.m.," the semicolon likely represents an "and." In the sentence "I want to go to the movies; I haven't done my homework," the semicolon likely represents a "but" or maybe a "yet."

It is certainly tricky to determine whether you should replace a conjunction with a semicolon, and some writers avoid this punctuation mark altogether. However, semicolons have another use, and in this role, they are indispensable. They are used to separate items in a list of phrases that include commas. If you were to say "I've been to Charlotte, North Carolina, Montgomery, Alabama, and Orlando, Florida," this sentence could be a little confusing to readers. Instead, you should write "I've been to Charlotte, North Carolina; Montgomery, Alabama; and Orlando, Florida." This makes things far clearer for readers.

Above all, colons and semicolons are one thing: tricky and ambiguous. (Wait, that was two things!) If you see one, just think carefully about its possible meaning; you should be able to figure the sentence out.