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ITT I cure semicolon cancer
16 years ago
Tonight on Numb3rs there was a caption on a TV news story: "The Drug War; A Losing Battle?" I cringed. They made a mistake I've been seeing a lot just in the past month for some reason: using a semicolon where a colon should be.
If you don't know what the semicolon is supposed to be used for... don't beat yourself up; probably most people don't, and you can usually avoid it altogether. But it's the colon's job when you want to describe, reveal, or elaborate on something. A good example of proper colon use that you're likely to see outside of literature is movie titles that have subtitles in them, such as Revenge of the Telemarketers: This Time, It's Impersonal. Other common uses you're likely to see are sentences starting with "Note:", "Here's an idea:", or an Internet favorite, "Protip:".
Luckily I don't remember seeing this on this site anytime recently, but seriously. The more you know and junk.
If you don't know what the semicolon is supposed to be used for... don't beat yourself up; probably most people don't, and you can usually avoid it altogether. But it's the colon's job when you want to describe, reveal, or elaborate on something. A good example of proper colon use that you're likely to see outside of literature is movie titles that have subtitles in them, such as Revenge of the Telemarketers: This Time, It's Impersonal. Other common uses you're likely to see are sentences starting with "Note:", "Here's an idea:", or an Internet favorite, "Protip:".
Luckily I don't remember seeing this on this site anytime recently, but seriously. The more you know and junk.
We; should; form an alliance; that burns down the homes; of people; that; use; punctuation; wrong
An APOSTROPHE
But I think it's worthwhile to be a stickler. Keep on sticklin'!