Colon's and semicolons are among the
most useful but also rich generous and
psychologically interesting kinds of
punctuation they look of course very
similar and that can cause confusion and
alarm but the distinction is very simple
visually the colon consists of two dots
spaced apart one above the other
while the semicolon is a dot floating
above a comma in terms of their use
although they're both used to link
together parts of a sentence the
grammatical rules which govern them work
in quite different ways a colon is used
either to explain something in more
detail or to identify a set of things
explicitly so for example Maria only
wanted the best from life then we put
the colon in here a beautiful home a
loving family and a glittering career
but we also use a colon whenever we want
to drill deeper into a topic maria
didn't know what to think then in it
goes after the divorce she had to
question everything
what follows the colon can be a list a
sentence in its own right or even a
single word as in this example maria
still had one important quality strength
a semicolon is different and in its way
a great deal more subtle it links
together two sentences that might have
stood on their own but it throws their
relationship into particular focus for
example maria had had enough then in
goes the semicolon she preferred to be
alone than misunderstood by another
person a semicolon could always be
replaced with a full stop but a full
stop doesn't do what a semicolon does so
wonderfully give us a sense that two
statements are related observed two what
would happen to this sentence if we put
in at colon rather than a semicolon
maria had had enough she preferred to be
alone than misunderstood by another
person
things get blunter and more linear this
means that all of Maria's fed openness
was to do with being misunderstood but
in life connections tend to be more like
semicolons than colons take this
description of Frank's mood connected up
with a semicolon Frank had a feeling of
melancholy autumn was coming semicolons
can artfully draw comparison
or contrast between related statements
one of the greatest fans of semicolons
was the American 19th century writer
William James it was for him a piece of
punctuation ideally suited to keeping
the flow of the mind from either
stopping altogether as if it had been
dammed as it does with a full stop or
else turning into an uncontained
incomprehensible torrent here are two
examples from William James's work of
semicolons in operation good humor is a
philosophic state of mind it seems to
say to nature that we take her no more
seriously than she takes us I maintain
that one should always talk of
philosophy with a smile and here's
another paragraph from William James
which uses a lot of semicolons a great
nation is not saved by Wars it is saved
by acts without external picturesqueness
by speaking writing voting reasonably by
smiting corruption swiftly by good
temper between parties by the people
knowing true men when they see them and
preferring them as leaders to rabid
partisans and empty quacks colons are
logical they unpack things but
semicolons are closer to life they are
what we use when we want to connect but
can't entirely explain when things are
related but not entirely dependent the
semicolon by gently linking ideas
together invites reflections and
interesting juxtapositions instead of
closing off a thought it introduces
another giving us paused see symbiotic
links its tone is mature and tentative
for example I believed that life was a
series of simple decisions but the more
I lived the more complicated those
decisions became we would be wise to see
more things in life
through the distinctive lens of the
semicolon
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