Semicolon (;) and colon (:) are fairly versatile punctuation marks used to separate lists.
Usage of Colon
Colon is generally used in the following situations:
1) To further explain or detail something. In such usage, it acts as if the flow of the sentence was paused briefly to explain something about the earlier point and then continued.
Examples:
a) I love burger: pieces of boiled vegetables pressed in between bun pieces.
b) He works in BodhiSutra: India’s largest on mobile English training company.
2) A slightly more technical use of colon (:) is in rations (3:4), hours and minutes (03:12 am) etc.
Usage of semi colon (;)
Semicolon is used in the following cases:
1) To join two sentences, eg: My father is a soldier; he always carries his gun.
2) To separate items in a list when individual items have commas or other punctuation marks within eg: Your dinner options are: Alu paratha, curd and pickle; Bread, omelette and tea; diced fruits, sprouts and green tea.
3) With words such as however, for instance etc. Some examples would be:
a) Sumit took the test; however, he failed.
b) There are many companies built by college dropouts; for example, Microsoft, Oyo rooms etc.
Click to WhatsApp us Now!