Punctuation – Use of Colon, Semicolon, Dash, Inverted Commas

In the previous post, we had done the use of Comma and Apostrophe. Now in this post, we are going to do the use of some more Marks of Punctuation. We shall do the use of Semicolon ( ;), Colon ( :), Dash and Parentheses ( -) and Inverted Commas / Quotation Marks ( ” ” ) / ( ‘   ‘ ) .

Use of Semicolon ( ;) –

This mark of Punctuation is used almost as a period/full stop within a sentence. Semicolon is used in place of and, but, because etc at the end of a thought to indicate that the thought enters in to another thought.

For Example –

Smith is black; John is white.

Man proposes ; God disposes.

Use of Colon ( :) –

When a sentence is to be followed by a list, quotation or a long speech, we use colon after it.

For Example –

William Wordsworth has written : Child is the father of man.

We use colon after the following words – Namely, as follows, following, for example etc.

For Example –

He faced many charges against himself namely : Murder, Theft and Rape.

Send us the following items of sports : Cricket bats, Footballs, Balls and Gloves.

Use of Punctuation –

Use of Dash and Parenthesis ( -)

We use dash to show that the words within a dash don’t belong to the sentence. When we use double dashes, we call them parentheses.

For Example –

We are – you know – innocent.

For love, he lost all – job, respect and peace of mind.

We use if for a pause –

She wrote me a letter – a letter of reconciliation.

To show the missing words in a sentence –

Mr —— is a hard working person.

Use of Quotation Marks –

We also call Quotation Marks as Inverted Commas. They are mainly used in the Direct speech to segregate the Reported Speech from the rest of the sentence.

She said to me,” Will you marry me?”

We also use them to enclose the names of books, poems, Quotations and essays.

Have you read “Hamlet”?

He couldn’t read ” beware of pickpockets” on the wall and suffered.

For the use of other marks of Punctuation please keep visiting.