The Grammar Business
Part Three
3. Using colons, semi-colons and
dashes
The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
Colons (:) are used
• To introduce a list
– e.g. To make puff pastry you require the
following ingredients: plain flour, salt,
butter.
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
Colons (:) are also used
• To introduce an explanation (or
expansion of what has just been said)
• e.g. She couldn’t eat another thing: she
had already consumed a seven-course
meal.
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
And a colon (:) may be used
• To introduce a quotation
– The following statement was released from
Downing Street: “No further comment at
this time.”
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
Or
•
To introduce a set of bullet points. For
example
You should always bear in mind:
•
•
•
your assailant may be armed
s/he may not like you
s/he may have martial arts training
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
The old punctuation sign that looks
like this :• is dead
• so don’t use it
• you have to hit TWO keys on a
keyboard even to make it appear
• A colon can do all the same things for
much less effort!
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
A semi-colon (;)
•
•
•
•
joins two clauses
usually to draw attention to the contrast
but sometimes to point the similarity
For example:
– “She was charming; he was rude.”
– “He was Algerian; she was Rumanian.”
– “He was fed up; so was she.”
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
Or a semi-colon (;) may
• separate items on a list, if the items
are wordy (instead of a comma)
• e.g. She went to the grocers and bought
two pounds of Conference pears; five
large, pink, luscious grapefruits; a
pineapple which was reduced by 50
pence; and finally a huge bunch of
beautiful red grapes.
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
It is wrong to use a semicolon (;)
• To introduce a list (it can only separate
items on the list)
• To introduce a set of bullet points
• To substitute for a comma just because
you think it looks nice
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
Dashes (-)
• Should not be confused with hyphens
• A hyphen joins two words together and
makes one e.g. semi-detached
• Hyphens have no spaces round them:
they take up the same space as an
ordinary letter inside a word
• whereas dashes always have a single
space before and after - like - this.
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
Dashes (-)
• Can be used to make an emphatic
pause
– e.g. How can I wear - this?
• To indicate an explanation will follow
(like a colon but more dramatic)
– e.g. She was just a baby - barely four months old.
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
Dashes (-) may also be used
• to indicate a hesitation or interruption
– “I think I should - er - go now.”
– “Please help me,” she screamed. “I -”
• or to separate points of information, like
bullets, as they do on this slide
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
And two dashes
• can be used to separate a piece of
information from the rest of the sentence
e.g. She was going to get out the little sharp
vegetable knife - the one she had carefully
sharpened the previous day - and she was going
to threaten to cut his throat.
• This way of using dashes helps the reader
see the main thread of the sentence
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
In business or formal writing
• You often need to use a colon (:)
• Semi-colons (;) are occasionally useful
• Dashes ( - ) are rarely used in business
writing, but frequently occur in short stories or
newspaper reports
• For further information on this, ask for
Handout Two.
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College
And finally
• There’s the new use for colons, semi-colons
and dashes in curious combinations
:-) in e-mail signifies a smile
;-) is a wink and a smile
:-( is too sad to explain…
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The Grammar Business © 2001 Glenrothes College