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Grammar
Unit 7: Lesson 1
Introduction to colonsThe colon as a separator
The colon can separate parts of a title, citations of religious texts, and the hour and minutes in the time of day. Paige explains how!
Want to join the conversation?
Don't we use colons in ratios too? What is the colon's job when it's in the ratio?(13 votes)
Colons in ratios are a mathematical sign there. They mean what they mean in math. In language, colons mean what they mean in language. These are two different uses of the same configuration of dots on a page. Do not confuse one use with the other.(1 vote)
Hello everyone!
So, I am having a trouble with what I saw in my study book and what I read in the Internet and previously knew:
My study book says that colons must be after independent clauses only. This means - according to my book - that "... are the following:" is incorrect, as a sentence with that part can't stand alone as an independent clause.
I searched this in the Internet and I got inconclusive answers: some say it isn't incorrect, while others just give unhelpful information.
Does any of you know whether this is true or not?
Do colons must be preceded by independent clauses? Is "... are the following:" correct?
Thanks for any help,(3 votes)
Should such a question appear on your exam, and should the person or computer that scores the exam mark it as incorrect, your research gives you ground to dispute the adjudication. But, the matter will not likely come up in a middle or high-school exam. It seems more applicable to a course in contracts when you're in law school, and for that, you'll have a style book.
Go bravely into that exam, sure of yourself, and convinced that you don't need to score 100%.(3 votes)
do you use colons in ratios(2 votes)- Colons in ratios are a mathematical sign there. They mean what they mean in math. In language, colons mean what they mean in language. These are two different uses of the same configuration of dots on a page. Do not confuse one use with the other.(3 votes)
- does Paige have her own chanel thing on hear(1 vote)
No, just Khan Academy videos. She should have one though.(2 votes)
what is salutation? how it's work.(1 vote)- The salutation is the thing that goes at the front of a letter, such as "Dear Mrs. Doubtfire:" Or, "Dear Sir or Madam as the case may be:"(2 votes)
Huh? what does this mean?(1 vote)- It seems to mean that, among the many functions of the punctuation mark known as a colon, one such function is to separate words or ideas in a list.
Does that help?(2 votes)
What happened to David?! He doesn't come in the videos anymore. I don't hear anything from him. Not even his regular salutations and valedictions which are: "Hello, grammarians" and "You can learn anything. David out."(1 vote)- David Rheinstrom finished making these videos at the end of 2016, and stopped answering questions in the grammar course sometime in 2017. No, you haven't heard anything from him lately.(1 vote)
i am a crisgin so thank you for using the bipol(1 vote)- is bear man even a book?(1 vote)
- David i miss you😭😢😩😰😔☹️😿💔💟(1 vote)
- David Rheinstrom finished up here at the end of 2016. Paige Finch was gone long before that (in September that year, she left Khan Academy and went back to finish her degree in linguistics at the University of California).(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians. So today we're gonna talk
about third and final function of the colon. So this final function of the
colon is that it can be used as a separator. So it might sound like we're talking about the comma again, right? The comma separates
elements of a sentence. But the colon does it in
kind of a different way. So, let's look at some examples. So one common use of
the colon as a separator is in titles. So you can have two separate
parts of the title, or like a title and a subtitle
for a book or a movie or a TV show. And there will be a colon in between them. We can have something like
Bear Man: Adventures in Alaska. Another common use of the
colon as a separator is in citations from a book or a poem, and pretty often the Bible. For example, we can use
it to separate the number of a Bible chapter from
the number of the verse. If we want to reference First
Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse four, we can write it like One Corinthians 13 colon four. Finally, we can use the
colon to separate the hour from the minutes in the time of day. If I want to tell someone what time it is, I can say it is now ten-oh-nine AM. And between the ten, which
is the hour of the day, and oh-nine, which is the
minutes, we put a colon. So that's how the colon
works as a separator. We can use it in titles,
citations, and times. You can learn anything. Paige out.