The colon is underused as punctuation and overused as an intestinal organ
Check it: colons are incredibly useful for introducing new ideas or adding emphasis. And the way people talk on the internet could use significantly more clarity: you can ramble and ramble, and just talk about whatever, expand on your point, really beat that dead horse, and then take a short break. But using colons allows you to introduce an important new idea: they provide a clear separation between different thoughts.
Oh yeah, about the colon as intestinal organ: idk...stay away from Taco Bell unless you have some extra time
My sophomore English teacher was out for a couple of weeks after having part of his colon removed. You bet your ass the get-well card was replete with semicolons.
I'll definitely give them a try for emphasis: emphasis.
That's what I'm talkin' about!
What are your thoughts on semi-colons? Not the ideal for organs, I'm sure, but for punctuation... ?
Semicolons are pretty neat too; the primary use is joining two related independent clauses without using a conjunction. Some folks seem to enjoy using them interchangeably with an em-dash; others prefer to use em-dashes as a less formal punctuation mark to replace a colon while still adding emphasis.
Also underused. Especially in lists. Like, if I want to go to Tokyo, Japan (again); Seoul, South Korea; (<- an Oxford semicolon??) and Bordeaux, France then semicolons are ideal rather than a bunch of commas that make it unclear.
I actually looked up how to use them and this site provides good examples.
Whoa, never heard of that. Nice.
Em and en dashes deserve more general appreciation too, although it seems more of a typographer thing when a hyphens or parenthesis gets the job done but I always forget to close my parenthesis... I know mac makes it easy to type but windows is cumbersome.
I'm really tired of reading laws and see how the legislator doesn't know that colons are a thing. And I have to add those colons wherever it's necessary so I can read and study them in an appropriate way.
This is an excellent post, thank you for blessing my feed with this discourse- I also really like using dashes!
Semicolons, dashes, commas, and colons are all great for breaking up and organizing words without implying to total pause that a period would. I find them perhaps especially useful since I write like I speak, making conveying cadence or pauses to break up run-on sentences particularly important for clarity
Yes! All those underused symbols are useful when you just get a train-of- thought going.