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Colons 3438 Views
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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?
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...
Full Transcript
- 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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