Written English 3: The Colon, Semi-colon and the Hyphen
A simple tutorial on the correct use of colons, semi-colons, and hyphens. This lesson caters both for people learning the English language, and for native English speakers seeking to "brush up" on their writing.
I’ve tackled the colon, the semi-colon and the hyphen in one article because for me, they were the hardest punctuation marks to learn to use. Remember that these tutorials are not meant to be all inclusive, they’re just simple pointers in the right direction to writing English correctly.
The colon is no longer generally used. Some contemporary writers hardly ever use this punctuation mark at all. I think that this may be because there are several other better understood marks which can be used in its place.
When to use a colon
Even though I keep my colon use to a minimum, I use it to introduce a list. However, as we’ve seen before, short lists can be just as easily introduced with a comma.
1. Use a colon to introduce a list
For a longer and more complex list, you may want to use the colon. Look at the following example.
- These tutorials so far consist of three lessons: Lesson one – the apostrophe. Lesson two – the comma and the full stop. Lesson three – the colon, semi-colon and the hyphen.
I chose to use the colon in this case because there were several parts to my complex list. Another reason was because I used many other punctuation marks in my sentences and I felt that the colon made my list read a lot easier and clearer than a comma would’ve done.
2. Use a colon to break up a long sentence
- In order to find a date, a balding man should follow a set of rules: get rid of his comb over, purchase a bottle of baby oil, employ a polisher, steal a copy of “The Magnificent Seven,” and stay away from furry animals with a tendency to nest on one’s head.
When to use a semi-colon
I think the fact that the semi-colon is slipping out of use is because it is not one of those necessary punctuation marks like the comma or the full stop. A semi-colon usually denotes a stop which is shorter than a full stop, but longer than a comma.
I have outlined the two most common uses for the semi-colon. These are the ones I mainly use. If the clauses get any more complicated than the examples shown below, I normally would re-write the thought into shorter, separate sentences
1. Use a semi-colon to separate lists where more information is given about one particular item.
- When I arrived at the picnic site he had already laid out: A vase, flowers included; some pancakes, smeared with “I can”t believe it’s not butter’ spread; two glasses of wine, chilled and dark; and a small furry animal just about to nest on his shining head.
Notice that because I’d used commas following the items, I had to then use semi-colons after the individual explanations or else this long sentence would’ve been extremely unclear and difficult to read. Use semi-colons only for lists like these. If you’ve got a straightforward list, it’s best to just use a comma.
2. Use a semi-colon to join two sentences which are connected.
- The furry animal was slow in climbing; it had gotten hold of the chilled, dark wine.
I did not use a full stop because the pause would’ve been too long and would not have properly shown the reader the connection between the two thoughts. I could not use a comma here because the pause would’ve been way too short for the reader to get the consequential connection between the two.
Note: the semi-colon has more uses than those which have been illustrated here. The ones mentioned here are generally made use of on a wider scale, in everyday writing.
When to use a hyphen
Do not confuse a hyphen with a dash. A hyphen is used when you want to shorten the pause (and the relationship) between words. A dash (which we will look at in another tutorial) lengthens the pause.
1. Use a hyphen to make your meaning clearer
- Yesterday we had two hour long tutorials.
Are we talking about two tutorials that lasted for an hour each, or are we referring to one tutorial which was two hours long?
To make the meaning of this sentence clear, we can re-write it in either of these two ways:
- Yesterday we had a two-hour long tutorial.
Or
- Yesterday we had two hour-long tutorials.
In the above demonstrations, you can see how using a hyphen can make your meaning clearer to your reader.
2. Use a hyphen to link words together to make a compound word.
Most people understand the use of hyphens to make compound words like mother-in-law, court-martial, up-in-arms, etc.
3. Use a hyphen to form a compound adjective.
When the noun the compound adjective is describing comes immediately after it, you can use a hyphen to link the two adjectives together.
- He is a well-known actor.
However if the noun (actor) comes before the adjective:
- The actors he associates with are all well known.
The adjective in the second sentence is not hyphenated.
4. Use a hyphen to change the meaning of words
In speech, your intonations and accents will make your meaning clear, but in writing, it is sometimes necessary to use hyphens when it is possible that your meaning is ambiguous. For example:
- I did a retake when I saw that the small, furry animal had nested in his head.
- I asked to re-take the driving test because the instructor’s furry wig made me lose concentration.
Using the hyphen in the second sentence makes my meaning clearer to the reader.
5. Use a hyphen to break up a word at the end of a line.
The rule is to never break up short words, one syllable words (like pawn, step etc) people’s names, other proper nouns, and words that are already compound words. In addition to this, never divide a word leaving only one or two letters on one line. For example, “res-pect,” not “re-spect.”
If you must divide your words, make the break at the end of a syllable. For instance, “com-plete” or “bridg-ing”, rather than “comp-lete” and “bri-dging.”
I usually do not break up words unless on rare occasions when I’m writing a hand-written note.
Here are some sentences for you to correct.
1. In this lesson we discussed the following. Colons, semi-colons; and hyphens.
2. I’m packed and ready for my second date at the chocolate factory. I’m taking these – a mug complete with hot water and sugar a chocolate bar given to me by my brother a roll of kitchen towel the quilted type.
3. His sister in law, a well known nut case around town, decided that I was not good enough for him.
4. I asked my tutor to remark the test because I was not happy with the “F” she gave me.
Answers
1. In this lesson we discussed the following: colons, semi-colons and hyphens. (2 mistakes)
2. I’m packed and ready for my second date at the chocolate factory. I’m taking these: a mug, complete with hot water and sugar; a chocolate bar, given to me by my brother; a roll of kitchen towel, the quilted type. (6 mistakes).
3. His sister-in-law, a well-known nut-case around town, decided that I was not good enough for him. (4 mistakes).
4. I asked my tutor to re-mark the test because I was not happy with the “F” she gave me. (1 mistake).
Other works in this series
Lesson 2 – The Comma And The Full Stop
Lesson 4 – The Dash, The Question Mark And The Exclamation Mark
Lesson 5 – Inverted Commas, Brackets And Capitalization
Don’t forget to check out my writing blog, A Blogger’s Books for more writing tips.
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43 Responses to “Written English 3: The Colon, Semi-colon and the Hyphen”
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August 7th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I learned many new things from this article.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I’m learning along with your article..
August 7th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
teaches very minute things which people normally ignore but impacts their sentence construction very badly…nice information..thanks for sharing!!!
August 8th, 2008 at 12:08 am
I still have not clear the use of hyphen in the first case, but I will read this excelent article again; ther is another thing that troubles me, but maybe I have to look for it in a grammar book, the thing is why this symbol (;)is called semicolon and not semicomma, and why use the colon instead of the regular comma?
Well, my first language was Napples dialect, the secvond one was Italian and then Spanish, English is only the last one I had learned, maybe is that the reason some things don’t want to enter in my head.
Thank you for sharing, God bless you for your hard work helping people like me.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Cleared a few things things up for me! Great article! Thank You!
August 8th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Clear: concise: well thought out and most helpful advice.
Many pitfalls lie in wait for writers, but most are quite avoidable if one understands the basics of good writing.
Being one who writes poetry, I am very conscious of the importance of “good” punctuation. It is regarded (by me at least) as an essential if one is to impart the true meaning of lines one pens, when coupled with a paucity of words. I do so deplore the sloppy, ill written prose one sees – all too frequently – in print today. A favourite rant of mine, I fear.
Being one who left school so many – far too many – years ago, it is all too easy to forget some of the basic rules I once knew so well, and your article, reminds me of punctuation mistakes I find so easy to make; far too often, as seemingly, One can become affected by reading too many of today’s writings.
Perhaps I could suggest an article on the mistake – so often seen and used – such as those who employ a word – such as First – rather than the correct “Firstly”? There are others too. I have other ‘beefs’ – mostly grammatical – but enough from me today.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Your first bit on hyphens is incorrect.
“Our picnic turned out to be a two hour-long flood disaster.” is not correct.
For the sentence to mean what you are attempting to make it mean, you would need to omit “a” and make “disaster” plural.
Thus, the sentence should read:
“Our picnic turned out to be two hour-long flood disasters.”
Even then, the sentence is still awkward, due to the first part (”Our picnic turned out to be”).
August 8th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Thanks for your supportive comments everyone. Teach you are right. I missed that ‘a’ in my editing. It should not have been kept in that particular sentence.
I shall have it fixed. Thanks for spotting that.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
English teacher approved!
August 8th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
A much needed English lesson for me, I have been out of school so long I have forgotten it all.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
i think my grammar is getting better by reading these lessons
Great job!
August 9th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Most style guides recommend using colons to introduce lists ONLY if what precedes the colon is a complete sentence.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I rarely ever use the semi-colon, maybe never at all; now that i understood the complete usage for it, or so i would like to think, i guess i might end up using it.
(I hope that was correct usage. Please correct me if it was not.)
August 9th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
very interesting Ann. You would die if you read any of my work… I put them by how I feel-lol- (did I do that right?) :O)) Thanks again it did clear alot up for me;because I am so confused all the time. Penny golding~
August 9th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
My wife is a “Techincal Writer” and you bring up valid points. I tend to over-use colon/semi-colons, but an trying to be more correct.
Another instance is use of “periods” in sentences ending in comment brackets. -The “period” goes INSIDE the comment, not outside.
Example:
This is easy (well, sort of.)
August 9th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I have never found a website iv liked more than this. English is nothing if it is misused and any promotion of correct grammer is ok in my books!
August 10th, 2008 at 1:52 am
In Strunk and White they say that colons should not follow a verb. I am not sure whether the first example you give is incorrect grammar or just poor style. Anyways, if people want to learn how to write well they should read that book.
August 10th, 2008 at 3:17 am
Rookie, if I was marking that, I’d give you full points.
Penny, maybe a bit of brushing up might help you. We haven’t studied the ellipses (…) but that’s another thing that’s misused. There are other tutorials in the series, maybe looking at all of them would be a good idea.(Sorry)
YeahUhHuh, I’m a UK-trained English teacher, and so is my husband who’s got a PhD. I’ve just run your comment by him. Neither of us have heard of that.
If what you say is true, all of the books I’ve ever read in my entire life which stated things like, “The important points are:” Have gone through editors, printers and writers with terrible mistakes. As you know ‘are’ is a verb.
August 10th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I have a comment on your usage of the verb “was.” Although it is more and more being used in the present tense (as are many other English words that are dwindling in original usage), I would rather use the verb “were” if I am talking about something that I might do. Your comment to Rookie seems to be saying you would do something, not that you have already done it. If I am wrong, then you should see the confusion. I would also state your comment differently, such as, “If I were to mark that, I’d give you full points.” I see your comment as something conditional or hypothetical. To use English as correctly as possible, I use a simple rule of thumb: If I am talking singular person, past tense, about something that has already occurred, I use the verb “was.” If I am talking about something that may occur in the future, I use the word “were.”
Another rule of thumb that is useful when using a semi-colon between two related sentences: If the sentences could be joined by the conjunctive “and,” then a semi-colon can be used to eliminate the conjuctive.
August 10th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Westbrook, ‘If I —- to’ definitely takes ‘were’ and not ‘was.’ I said, ‘If I was marking…’
My thought was set in a continuous action, in a very informal way.
RookieE and I have exchanged quite a lot of comments with each other, therefore, are on ‘friendly terms’ with one another. I am a writer and no longer teach. I like to make my comments as informal and as unpretentious as possible.
Thank you for your comment. It certainly adds to the article in a positive way.
August 11th, 2008 at 1:08 am
A very good article and one to return to often. Thank you.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I am surprised at the interest and the debate which your English lessons have garnered. I suppose most of the writers on Triond are adults who were educated back when punctuation, spelling, and proper grammar were specifically taught. As a teacher, I was appalled by the standards at some schools; especially those schools which employed the “whole language” theory. I think we are going to have more trouble with this new generation of “text message” kids who are inventing their own dialect where speed and short-cuts are the priority.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:53 am
very informative. thanks. i think i’ll check these punctuation marks next time i write.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I believe Karen makes a good point. When I read material on Triond, I can pretty much determine who has been taught/learned correct English. I can generally determine the age and gauge the level of intelligence of the writers by how they write. I will share my thoughts in more depth on this subject in an article that I will be writing soon.
August 11th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Thank you for writing this article. I may have to write a they’re there their article… I find it ironic you have a colon in your title. If only you had used it incorrectly… :p
August 11th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Useful. Many people are ashamed that they do not know or remember this kind of stuff.
August 11th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Thanks
August 12th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Great job! I would love to see you do the same for quotes.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Careful with your colon suggestions. Anything before a colon should be an independent clause (complete thought) on its own. Both your colon examples are incorrect grammar. The first one is especially egregious.
This would be more correct.
Example 1: These tutorials so far consist of three lessons: the apostrophe, the comma and the full stop…..
Example 2: A balding man should do a few things in order to find a date: get rid of his comb over, purchase a bottle of baby oil, employ a polisher, steal a copy of “The Magnificent Seven,” and stay away from furry animals with a tendency to nest on one’s head.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Very interesting article :
and informative ,keep up the good work.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Excellent Article; however, you might want to visit your first example under semi-colons. I am straddle the fence on some of your assertions. I do not believe the semi-colon and a few other punctuations marks are fading away, I believe, for the most part, some writers today simply are not as dedicated to their craft as some of the old masters were. Thanks for making me revisit some very basic writing rules!!
Doss
August 13th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I have already found your first English lesson, it is in socyberty, now I have the three of them, waiting for the fourth one, see Ann Lee, since I am not an English speaker properly, because my motherly language was Napple dialect and my country language is Spanish along with Italian, I make a lot of horrible mistakes when I comment, when I write and pubblish, the mistakes are less, thanks to the ortographic checker on Word, but still, there are too many things I do not know how they work, as for example, most of my Spanish poetry is rhymed, in Italian too, because I love rhyme, but in English it is not so easy for me to rhyme and maintain a coherence in the speech, also the syllabic division is too different between English and Spanish, and the hiphen thing, well, to tell the truth never heard about, so I am anxious to read lesson number four. Thank you for writting it, God bless you.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I love this grammar talk and all the comments and interest in the topic. It’s fun. As far as Strunk and White/YeahUhHuh, the “rule” is not to separate a transitive verb from its (direct) object with a colon (nor a preposition from its object). I also agree with Thestickman that more people should remember to place the period INSIDE the quotation mark. It’s so refreshing to be around writers who care. Great article! Thanks for the fun.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
You used “right” when you meant “write” in your Triond Blog comment of August 13th. Grammar and spelling is very important!
August 15th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Great article. I truly needed the review of the basics of punctuations. Thanks!
This is a must-read for those who want to improve their writing.
August 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Please advise if self-contained accommodation is correct where self contained accommodation is incorrect.
I see both in the media, but am of the opinion that “self-contained” is the correct way.
Thank you.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Freddie, I’m with you. I’ve always written ’self-contained’ and have taught that as well. Same for self-obsessed, self-assured, etc.
August 20th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Thank you, Anne. I can tell my Web client where I got the info from!
September 1st, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Hi
I thank you very much for your help. I’m always finding myself making these mistakes and hope that as I continue to write they will get better.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
very instructive
December 5th, 2008 at 11:56 am
To make the meaning of this sentence clear, we can re-write it in either of these two ways:
* Yesterday we had a two-hour long tutorial.
Or
* Yesterday we had two hour-long tutorials.
Rather than the first which does not convey any possible meaning of the original ambiguous sentence you should have offered: Yesterday we had two-hour long tutorials. This refers to multiple tutorials, two or more, as the original sentence did rather than forcing a singular that was not implied.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:15 am
hi!it’s grt to read dis artcle.i hve lrnt a lot,wch i frgt wid pssge of time.but cn u pls put mre exmpls for better understanding?and is dre a way thrgh wch i cld put up my wrtng for crrtn by u. do rply.
July 29th, 2009 at 8:02 am
It’s really difficult to read your writing, v v. At first I thought it was a different language. I think that the trick to writing properly is a lot of practice. Text speak belongs on a mobile phone – but of course this is just my humble opinion.