Colons and the Hyphen

Grammar Notes

Honours English 9

Colon (:)

• Use a colon [ : ] before a list or an explanation.

• Only use a colon after statements that are complete sentences

Ex: There is only one thing left to do now: confess while you still have time.

Ex: The charter review committee now includes three people: the mayor, the chief of police, and the president.

Colon (:)

• A colon instead of a semicolon may be used between

independent clauses when the second sentence

explains, illustrates, paraphrases, or expands on the

first sentence.

• Ex: Her hard work paid off: she received a full-ride

scholarship to college.

• Ex: The ball was very hard: it left an orange-sized

bruise on my arm.

Hyphen (-)

• Hyphens are used to link words and parts of words. They are not as common today as they used to be, but there are three main cases where you should use them:• in compound words

• to join prefixes to other words

• to show word breaks

Hyphen (-)

• Hyphens in compound words

Hyphens are used in many compound words to show that the component words have a combined meaning

Ex: a pick-me-up, mother-in-law, good-hearted

or that there is a relationship between the words that make up the compound

Ex: rock-forming minerals are minerals that form rocks.

Note: you don’t need to use them in every type of compound word.

Hyphen (-)

• With compound adjectives formed from the adverb well and a participle (e.g. well-known), or from a phrase (e.g. up-to-date), you should use a hyphen when the compound comes before the noun:

Ex: well-known brands of coffeean up-to-date account

• but not when the compound comes after the noun:

Ex: His music was also well known in England.Their figures are up to date.

• It’s important to use hyphens in compound adjectives describing ages and lengths of time leaving them out can make the meaning ambiguous

Ex: 250-year-old trees clearly refers to trees that are 250 years old, while 250 year old trees could equally refer to 250 trees that are all one year old.

Hyphen (-)

• Hyphens joining prefixes to other words

• Hyphens can be used to join a prefix to another word, especially if the prefix ends in a vowel and the other word also begins with one too.

Ex: co-own, pre-assessment

This use is less common than it used to be, though, and one-word forms are becoming more usual (e.g. prearrange or cooperate).

• Use a hyphen to separate a prefix from a name or date, e.g. post-Aristotelian or pre-1900.

Hyphen (-)

• To show word breaks.

• when you come to the end of a line, if the last word

is too long, you can break it up between the lines.

• This break needs to occur at a natural syllable

break.

• Should not be done to names or one syllable words.

• Ex: blah, blah, blah, double blah, triple blah, dia-

bolical.