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Description:

This video covers colons. How do you use them in a sentence? What do they have to do with lists?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Colons, a la Shmoop.

00:09

It's time for little Timmy to make his Christmas list.

00:12

Sure, it'd be awesome if Santa could deliver a device that would keep him from falling

00:15

into the well...

00:16

...but there are so many other toys and gadgets that Timmy would love to see under the tree...

00:21

...that he'll list them all right here...after this colon.

00:26

No, Timmy isn't referring to a critical part of his digestive system...

00:32

...but rather to the punctuation mark that signals we should expect something or be on

00:37

the lookout for additional information.

00:41

Colons appear all over the place: in sentences, lists, and salutations...

00:45

...so let's look at some examples. When we use a colon in a sentence, we use

00:50

it only after a statement that is a complete sentence...

00:53

...so that we can clarify or expand on what came before it.

00:57

So if we say, "Timmy wants several toys for Christmas...colon...an Easy Bake oven,

01:03

a watercolor kit, a Barbie doll, and a Lite-Brite"...

01:07

...we're using the colon correctly, because "Timmy wants several toys for Christmas"

01:12

is a statement that can stand alone as a complete sentence.

01:15

However, if we say, "The toys Timmy wants are...colon...an Easy Bake oven, a watercolor

01:22

kit, a Barbie doll, and a Lite-Brite"...

01:24

...we'd be using the colon incorrectly, because "The toys Timmy wants are" is

01:29

a sentence fragment.

01:32

And perhaps Timmy should rethink his toy choices. What's a kid going to do with a Lite-Brite

01:36

when he's stuck in a well? Here's another example of correct colon

01:42

use in a sentence.

01:44

If we say, "Timmy fell down the well three times last week...colon...on Saturday, Sunday,

01:50

and Wednesday"...

01:50

...we know our sentence works, because "Timmy fell down the well three times last week"

01:55

is a statement that can stand on its own. Even if Timmy...can't.

01:59

However, if we say "Timmy fell down the well on...colon...Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday"...

02:05

...our sentence would be incorrect, because "Timmy fell down the well on" is a sentence fragment.

02:11

If we have any doubts about the correctness of a colon's placement in a sentence, we

02:17

can always trade out the colon for the word "namely" as a test.

02:21

Let's see what happens if we try this trick with our last example.

02:25

"Timmy fell down the well three times last week...namely...on Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday."

02:31

Woot! That one works!

02:33

Now for our second incorrect sentence. "Timmy fell down the well on...namely...Saturday,

02:37

Sunday, and Wednesday."

02:39

Uh, yeah. Not so much. We use colons in lists just as we use them

02:44

in sentences...

02:45

...after statements that can stand alone as complete sentences.

02:49

Say we have the list, "Timmy has three things he hates about the well...colon...the dark...the

02:54

damp...and the ghosts of other kids who've fallen down the well".

03:00

This list works, because "Timmy has three things he hates about the well" can stand

03:06

on its own as a sentence.

03:07

We can check this by substituting the colon for the word "namely", so that our list

03:12

reads...

03:13

..."Timmy has three things he hates about the well...namely...the dark, the damp, et

03:18

cetera". Here's an example of a list gone terribly

03:22

wrong, rather like Timmy's luck around that blasted well...

03:24

"Three things Timmy hates about the well...colon...the dark...the damp...and the ghosts of other

03:29

kids who've fallen down the well."

03:32

This list doesn't work, because "Three things Timmy hates about the well" isn't

03:36

a complete sentence.

03:38

Moreover, if we replace the colon in this example with the word "namely", we get...

03:43

..."Three things Timmy hates about the well...namely...the dark..."

03:45

Okay, let's just stop right there, because this example utterly fails the "namely"

03:51

test. Another place we might see a colon is in the

03:53

salutation of a letter.

03:59

Say Timmy's mom makes him write a letter to the fire department, which has rescued

04:03

him from the well fifteen times in the last three months.

04:09

Timmy would start the letter with the salutation, "Dear Firefighters...colon..."

04:14

Say Timmy's dad makes him write a letter to Farmer Nesbitt, who owns the well but refuses

04:19

to put a fence up around it.

04:23

Timmy would start the letter with the salutation, "Dear Mr. Nesbitt...colon..."

04:26

There's one clarification we need to make about colon use...

04:30

...you don't have to capitalize the first letter after a colon unless the word is one

04:34

that would normally be capitalized.

04:36

For example, if we had the sentence, "Timmy had three places he wanted to visit...colon...France,

04:41

Bangladesh, and Brazil"...

04:43

...we would of course capitalize the letter "F" in the word "France", because

04:47

France is a proper noun.

04:48

However, if we had the sentence, "Timmy had three places he wanted to visit...colon...the

04:53

grocery store, the post office, and the movie theater"...

04:56

...we wouldn't have to capitalize the "t" in "the", because that "the" is nothing

05:02

special. And now it's Christmas morning at Timmy's

05:05

house. Looks like Santa didn't pay much attention to all the toys he listed after

05:09

that colon...

05:10

...because his parents got him a puppy named Lassie...

05:13

...in the hopes that their son's new dog will keep him out of the well.

05:16

We wouldn't bet on that.

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