What is a colon?

A colon is made up of two dots on top of each other :

What is a semi-colon?

A semi-colon is made up of a dot and a comma ;

What is the difference between a colon and a semi-colon?

A colon is used after a stated fact and before an explanation or a list of examples. It is also sometimes used to replace quote marks in dialogue, like in a script. See Wikipedia for details.

A semi-colon, on the other hand, separates interdependent statements. You commonly see it before a list of items where commas would cause ambiguity or to link related clauses.

Semicolons are followed by a lower case letter and one space.

Examples of using a semi-colon:

• I saw three people: James, who came from Ireland; Alex, the electrician's son; and Georgia, a gaunt kind of woman.
• Several fast food restaurants can be found within the cities: London, England; Paris, France; Dublin, Ireland; and Madrid, Spain.
• Examples of familiar sequences are: one, two and three; a, b and c; and first, second and third.
• (Fig. 8; see also plates in Harley 1941, 1950; Schwab 1947).
• I went to the basketball court; I was told it was closed for cleaning.
• I told Ben he's running for the hills; I wonder if he knew I was joking.
• Nothing is true; everything is permitted.
• A man chooses; a slave obeys.
• I told John that his shoe was untied; he looked.
• Everyone knows that he is guilty of committing the crime; of course, it will never be proven.
• It can occur in both melodic and harmonic lines; however, it is subject to certain restraints.
• Of these patients, six were not enrolled; thus the cohort was composed of 141 patients at baseline. This is the least common use and is mostly confined to academic texts.

COLON ( : )

    I have been using the colon extensively in this booklet, which should serve to illustrate its functions. Fowler defines the colon’s function as ‘delivering the goods invoiced in the preceding words’. For example: Here is our travel itinerary: London, Paris, Vienna, New Delhi.

The colon in its modern use is the equivalent of namely or that is, for example: Only one course of action remained: shoot to kill! Note: If the word following the colon is normally lower case, do not capitalise.

The colon is particularly useful when writing dialogue, allowing the attribution to precede the quote, for example: He turned to me and asked: ‘How will you get home from here?’

    Do not subordinate the colon to a lesser mark of punctuation than a full stop, in other words, make sure the goods delivered by the colon consist of all the words from the colon to the end of the sentence. Do not use two colons in the same sentence. Do not include any other words besides the ‘goods’. Do not use the colon when a semi-colon or dash would serve the purpose of separating the major elements of a sentence.

SEMI-COLON) ( ; )

The semi-colon is weighted half-way between a comma and a full stop, used principally as a substitute for the conjunction when the writer is ‘on a roll’, building tension, for example: The breakers were tumbling in; he could feel the salt spray on his lips; it tasted good. But the fishing boat was in trouble, shipping water, perhaps; or had its motor failed?

In the foregoing example, semi-colons are used instead of full stops or conjunctions while the thought is continuous; when the direction of thought changes, the conjunctions but and or are called into use. The semi-colon is also useful for marking divisions in lists, for example: Our journey took us through Calcutta and Bombay, India; Athens, Greece; Munich, Germany; and finally to Scotland.

The semi-colon is not recommended for dialogue, being somewhat too formal.

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