ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Company Policy. In order to balance out

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Casual Fridays, we will be instituting Extra-Formal Mondays.

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How should this sentence be changed so that it is grammatically correct?

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The employees were surprised: by the decision no change in company policy.

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Looks like we're throwing regular colons into the mix now. Nothing "semi" about these guys.

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But, what do colons do? Like, when they aren't the eyes of an emoticon smiley face?

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A colon is used before an explanation, or a list. The part before the colon has to be

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an independent clause, meaning it has to stand on its own.

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Let's look through the answers to first see which ones start with an independent clause,

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and have a list after the colon. A has a complete independent clause, but the

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part after the colon is not an explanation. Instead, it's a continuation of the sentence.

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What about B? We're back to a semicolon here. Well remember, both sides of the semicolon

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have to be able to stand alone as sentences. The second half doesn't look particularly

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promising. It's definitely not a complete sentence. Let's move on.

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Does C work? Let's first look at whether or not the first clause is a complete sentence.

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The words "no change" at the end just hang on to the sentence, so, no.

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That leaves us with D. The first part is a complete independent clause, and the second

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half explains the decision. Bingo. Just so you know, this sentence is now out

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of colonoscopy surgery and is doing just fine.

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