Usage
The most common use of the colon is to inform the reader that what follows the colon proves, explains, or lists elements of what preceded it.
The Bedford Handbook describes several uses of a colon. For example, one can use a colon after an independent clause to direct attention to a list, an appositive, or a quotation. Also, it can be used between independent clauses if the second summarizes or explains the first. Furthermore, one may use a colon after the salutation in a formal letter, to indicate hours and minutes, to show proportions, between a title and subtitle, and between city and publisher in bibliographic entries.
Luca Serianni, an Italian scholar who helped to define and develop the colon as a punctuation mark, identified four punctuational modes for it: syntactical-deductive, syntactical-descriptive, appositive, and segmental. Although Serianni wrote this guide for the Italian language, his definitions apply also to English and many other languages.
Read more about this topic: Colon (punctuation)
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)