I like to think of a colon as similar to
a lens on a camera, and so even though
we're going to review a number of uses
of the colon in this video, the one
feature that they all have in common is
that they allow you to zoom in to
something specific that comes at the end
of the sentence. So let's review the
major uses of colons.
We typically use colons in one of four
ways, so let's review these. ...
In each case we start
with an independent clause (so a part of
a sentence that has a subject and a verb
and can stand by itself as a complete
sentence) and then we follow up with the
colon ... and then we add something afterwards
that zooms in.
So in the first case we'll add a list.
... You could have more items of course.
In the second case we'll start with our
independent clause, add a colon, and
conclude with an appositive (and we'll talk about
what that actually means). In the third
place, we'll start again with our
independent clause, add a colon, and then
we'll just have a quotation. And I think
you're probably familiar with that.
... Lastly we're going to start with
our independent clause, add a colon, and now
we're actually going to add a complete
independent clause. And that sounds a
little bit like how you would use a semicolon,
and we'll talk about the difference
between the colon usage and the
semicolon usage. So let's review each of
these in some more detail now.
Now, the first usage that we talked about
is before a list, and the thing to
watch out for here is that you use the
colon correctly. So we talked before
about how you have to start with an
independent clause, and you can check by
reading just this bit by itself. If
your clause is indeed independent .. so
you could say, "There are three types of
wine drinkers..." and that could definitely
be a complete sentence by itself. If you
look at the second example here ("The
Vikings traveled as far as ...") -- if you just
stopped your sentence there you would
know that's probably not an independent
clause. The reason for that is that
there is no object on this side of the
colon. The objects all follow after the
colon. So what we want to do here is
take this colon away.
We don't want to have a colon because
our introduction moves right into the
list. We need these two [parts] to become one and
we can't have a colon interrupting the
flow. So there's a very simple check you
can do then:
you can basically just read the
opening bit by itself, and if it's a
complete sentence then it's an
independent clause and you can add the
colon and then conclude with a list.
Now I also said that you can use a colon
before an appositive, and that takes a little bit
of explanation. So an appositive is basically a
noun phrase that renames an earlier noun
phrase. If you say, for instance, "Bob
visits often" (there's a sentence), you can
rename Bob by basically introducing
something in between.
You could say, "Bob, my uncle, visits often,"
and then you can add some commas around
"my uncle" to set it off properly. So this
little bit here ("my uncle") is what's
called an appositive. It's a noun phrase that
renames an earlier noun.
In this case, "my uncle" renames Bob. You
can also do this sort of thing at the
end of a sentence. You have your colon,
and then you end with an appositive, and that appositive
renames an earlier noun.
So here we have, "There is only one
possible outcome..." And we have a noun in
"outcome," and then "death," the other noun
(can also be a noun phrase) renames
"outcome."
The second one is quite similar even
though it looks a little bit different.
[The word] "collecting" is a present participle. [It] ends
in "-ing." But we know that a present
participle can act like a noun. In fact,
it is called the gerund if it does that.
Kind of a funny word that one.
... And here it's renaming "unusual
hobby." So what is that unusual hobby? It's
collecting naval fluff. Now, most of these
cases then are basically one noun or a
noun and some further description, but
occasionally you can add a little bit
more of an ending to your sentence. In
this case, it's not a complete sentence
after the colon, but we have added a
longer phrase just to conclude things
and add a little bit more information.
Our second usage then of the colon is
the appositive -- most of the time just one single
noun
or a noun and some description, [though] sometimes
we can add a little bit more of a final
explanation.
Our third use of the colon, as mentioned,
is before a quotation. Again, we want
to make sure that it comes after an
independent clause, which it does in this
case, and typically if we use a colon to
introduce a quote we want the quotation
itself also to be an independent clause.
You can read that by yourself if you
like just to check that it's a complete
sentence, and can stand by itself. There is
one small exception: occasionally you may
also introduce a quotation with a colon
if you follow it up with an appositive that
forms the quote. So you can have an
independent clause, a colon, and then the
quotation is an appositive. That's much
more rare, but it is something to watch
out for.
And so we get to our last major use of
the colon, which is between two
independent clauses. In the first
example here ("You traveled all this way
for nothing: the car has already been
sold"), the second clause (starting with "the
car") basically zooms in and explains the
first. Why was it pointless to travel
this way?
Well, the car has been sold. In the second
example, we used a semicolon. We
could also use a comma, because the
clauses are quite short, but we've used a
semicolon because these two clauses are
equal. That's really the difference
between the two: if the second clause is
more specific, you allowed to use a colon.
If the two clauses are of equal standing,
as in this case (these two clauses are
basically contrast[ing]), then you would use a
semicolon. Now there's one more thing to
know here. If you use a colon, and you
zoom in in the second clause, you have a
choice:
you can either capitalize the first
word of the second clause, or you can
leave it not capitalized. It's really
up to you what you do. There are
different guidelines depending on what
standards you use, so if you work for a
newspaper or publishing firm, but in
general it's up to you what you prefer.
The main thing is just to be
consistent in your approach.
And that's it for major uses of the
colon. We'll finish now with just some
minor uses you may come across. So if you
are citing Bible texts, it's quite common to
use a colon between the chapter and the
verse. We can also use it in giving the
time of the day, and it's quite common in
titles. So we can separate the two
elements of our title with a colon.
That's it for colons. Hope you enjoyed
watching his movie.