How to use Colons?

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How to use Colons? :



The aim of punctuation is to make the meaning of written words as clear and as immediately understandable as possible. Read the following and see whether you can get the sense.

What do you mean I am a detective

The meaning of these words depends on the punctuation.

(A) What! Do you mean I am a detective?
(b) What do you mean? I am a detective.

Compare the following.

(a) He doesn’t walk normally. (= He walks in a strange way.)

(b) He doesn’t walk, normally. (= Usually he doesn’t walk.)

Here is another example. The words in each of the following sentences are the same. But the meaning differs depending on the punctuation.

(a) Gopal said, “Suresh met with an accident.”
(b) “Gopal”, said Suresh, “met with an accident.”

The commonly used punctuation marks are…

1. Full Stop (.)
2. Question Mark (?)
3. Exclamation Mark (!)
4. Comma (,)
5. Colon (:)
6. Semicolon (;)
7. Quotation Marks Or Inverted Commas (‘‘ Or “ ”)
8. Apostrophe (’)

The colon is used….

1. To separate two statements when the second statement explains the first :

We have to give up our holiday plans : the dates don’t work out.

I was late for school this morning : the bus was full and I had to walk.

2. Before a list, and often introduced by phrases like as follows & in the following examples.

The results are as follows : Suresh 1st, Vijay 2nd, Ahmed 3rd.

You must learn the use of the following points.

the full stop
the comma
semi-colon
the colon

How to use Colons?

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