The Elements of Style - Deck 1

Question 1

Colon

Answer 1

Use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of particulars, an appositive, an amplification, or an illustrative quotation.

A colon tells the reader that what follows is closely related to the preceding clause. The colon has more effect than the comma, less power than the semicolon, and more formality than the dash. It usually follows an independent clause and should not separate a verb from its complement or a preposition from its object.

“Your dedicated whittle requires three props: a knife, a piece of wood, and a back porch.”

Join two independent clauses with a colon if the second interprets or amplifies the first. “But even so, there was a directness and dispatch about animal burial: there was no stopover in the undertaker’s foul parlor, no wreath or spray.”

A colon may introduce a quotation that supports or contributes to the preceding clause. “The squalor of the streets reminded her of a line from Oscar Wilde: ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’”

The colon also has certain functions to form: to follow the salutations of a formal letter, to separate hour from minute in a notation of time, and to separate the title of a work from its subtitle or a Bible chapter from a verse.

Dear Mr. Montague:
departs at 10:49 PM
Practical Calligraphy: An Introduction to Italic Script
Nehemiah 11:7

We often use colons to set up lists or series of items when we want to emphasize the list or series for some reason. We use the colon in such cases to point to the information that comes after it. Most often the list is an appositive that renames or defines some part of the information that comes before the colon, and the information can be presented as either a horizontal list or as a vertical list. But the main rule for using colons still applies: the information that comes before the colon must be a complete sentence.

If you haven’t already noticed the pattern, let me say again, when you use a colon to introduce a quotation, the information that comes before the colon must be a complete sentence.

    Ex.: Frederick expresses his concern about heart disease: “Deaths from heart disease 
            in America will increase five-fold in the next twenty years.” 

Here’s a hint about introducing a quotation with a sentence and a colon: the information before the colon should add to the reader’s understanding of the quotation—it should set up a context for or explain something about the quote. This hint becomes even more important when you are setting up a block quotation.

We all know that we can use a semicolon to join two sentences to create a compound sentence when the two sentences are closely related. But when the first sentence of the pair creates an expectation in the reader that the second sentence fulfills, then the correct punctuation to use to connect them is a colon. In other words the second sentence illustrates, explains or exemplifies the idea expressed in the first sentence.

Ex.: The adoption of a totem implies an awareness of a disunity where there
once was unity: the conscious human decision to adopt the totem must
have arisen from a sense of loss or absence and the desire to bridge the
chasm.

Question 2

Appositive

Answer 2

An appositive is a noun or pronoun — often with modifiers — set beside another noun or pronoun to explain or identify it. Here are some examples of appositives (the noun or pronoun will be in blue, the appositive will be in red).

“Your friend Bill is in trouble.”
“My brother’s car, a sporty red convertible with bucket seats, is the envy of my friends.”
“The chief surgeon, an expert in organ-transplant procedures, took her nephew on a hospital tour.”

An appositive phrase usually follows the word it explains or identifies, but it may also precede it.

“A bold innovator, Wassily Kadinsky is known for his colorful abstract paintings.”
“The first state to ratify the U. S. Constitution, Delaware is rich in history.”
“A beautiful collie, Skip was my favorite dog.”

–>Punctuation of appositivest know what qualities of John Kennedy were being referred to without the appositive.