Colon (punctuation) 59131 226144627 2008-07-17T00:48:13Z Sburke 163811 adding xref to apostrophes too being used as morpheme separators {{This article is about| colons in punctuation. For other uses of similar terms, see [[Colon (disambiguation)]] and [[Colón]].}} <!-- NOTE for editors :If you add other usages here, please just hint at them, then link to a relevant article which will provide all the details; the aim is to have information in one place, or they will inevitably get out of sync and/or wrong at some time. --> {{Punctuation marks|:}} The '''colon''' (“''':'''”) is a [[punctuation]] mark, consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line. ==Punctuation== ===Usage=== As with many other punctuation marks, the usage of colon varies among languages and, for a given language, among historical periods. As a rule, however, a colon informs the reader that what follows proves and explains, or simply enumerates elements of what is referred to before. The following classification of the functions that a colon may have, given by [[Luca Serianni]] (a pioneer of the colon) for [[Italian language|Italian]] usage,<ref>{{cite book | last = Serianni | first = Luca | authorlink = Luca Serianni | coauthors = Castelvecchi, Alberto | year = 1988 | title = Grammatica italiana. Italiano comune e lingua letteraria. Suoni, forme, costrutti | publisher = UTET | location = Turin | language = Italian | id = ISBN 88-02-04154-7 }}</ref> is generally valid for English and many other languages: * '''syntactical-deductive''': introduces the logical consequence, or effect, of a fact stated before : There was only one possible explanation: The train had never arrived. * '''syntactical-descriptive''': introduces a description—in particular, explicits the elements of a set : I have three sisters: Catherine, Sarah and Mary. * '''appositive''': introduces a sentence with the role of [[apposition]] with respect to the previous one * '''segmental''': introduces a direct [[speech communication|speech]], in combination with [[quotation mark]]s and [[dash]]es. The segmental function was once a common means of indicating an unmarked quotation on the same line. The following example is from Fowler's grammar book, ''The King’s English'': :Benjamin Franklin proclaimed the virtue of frugality: a penny saved is a penny earned. A colon may also be used for the following: * introduction of a definition :''A'': the first letter in the Latin alphabet :''Hypernym of a word'': a word having a wider meaning than the given one; e.g., ''vehicle'' is a hypernym of ''car'' * separation of the chapter and the verse number(s) indication in many references to religious scriptures, and also epic poems; it was also used for chapter numbers in [[roman numerals]] :[[Gospel of John|John]] 3:14–16 (or John III:14–16) (cf. [[chapters and verses of the Bible]]) :The [[Qur'an]], Sura 5:18 * separation when reporting time of the day (cf. [[ISO 8601]]); however, this is not universal (but is typically used with American software)<ref name="eatsshoots">Truss, Lynne. ''Eats, Shoots & Leaves'', 2003. p. 50. ISBN 0-7862-6837-9.</ref> :The concert finished at 23:45 (or alternatively 23.45 <ref name="eatsshoots">Truss, Lynne. ''Eats, Shoots & Leaves'', 2003. p. 50. ISBN 0-7862-6837-9.</ref>) :This [[computer file|file]] was last modified today at 11:15:05 * separation of a title and the corresponding subtitle :''[[Star Wars]] [[Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope|Episode IV: A New Hope]]'' * separation of clauses in a [[periodic sentence]] In English, a colon may be followed either by a [[capital letter]] or by a [[lower case]] letter, depending on usage: where speech follows, a capital letter is used; where an [[acronym]] or [[proper noun]] follows, a capital is used; otherwise a lower case letter is used.<ref name="eatsshoots"/> In British English, the word following the colon is uncapitalized unless it is a proper noun, an acronym, or if it is normally capitalized for some other reason. Some modern American style guides, including those published by the [[Associated Press]] and the [[Modern Language Association]], specify capitalization where the colon is followed by an independent clause (i.e. a complete sentence). However, [[The Chicago Manual of Style]]<ref>[http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/Capitalization/Capitalization06.html Chicago Style Q&A: Capitalization<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> requires capitalization only when the colon introduces two or more complete sentences.<ref>[http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/colon.htm Capital Community College: Guide to Grammar and Writing]</ref> *TAYLOR: You know that I have red hair, Chloe. How many more times? *He is inordinately proud of one article he created: [[FRESH, UNESCO]] arose out of his efforts to disambiguate [[Fresh]] *[[Julian Duguid]], author of Green Hell (1931), starts his book boldly: “When a man yields to the urge of Ishmael . . .” *This theory isn’t as high-falutin’ as it sounds: De Picciotto is just pointing out that, for a tennis player in an important match, it is much easier to shut out an awareness of the plight of the horned owl than to resist the distractions of personal problems. [Peter Bodo, “The Human Side of Steffi Graf,” Tennis, Sept. 1990, p. 46.] <ref>[http://people.whitman.edu/~hashimiy/colonxmp.htm Some Examples of Colon Usage]</ref> *To [[Error|err]] is [[Humanism|human]]: to forgive, [[Divinity|Divine]] ===Conventions and non-English languages=== In many European languages the colon is usually followed by a lowercase letter (unless the uppercase is due to other reasons, such as a proper noun). However, usage differs from this in German, where an uppercase letter may be used only if the sentence ''after the colon'' could stand alone without the preceding sentence (elsewise one may judge freely according to the relative independency of the two assertions)<ref>[http://www.duden.de/deutsche_sprache/newsletter/archiv.php?id=21 Duden Newsletter vom 24.08.2001]</ref>, and in Dutch, where an uppercase letter must be used if the colon is followed by a quotation or an enumeration of complete sentences, although in all other cases a lowercase letter should be used.<ref>[http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/392/ Hoofdletter na dubbele punt]</ref> A thin space is traditionally placed before a colon and a thick space after it. In English-language modern high-volume commercial printing, no space is placed before a colon and a single space is placed after it. In French-language typing and printing, the traditional rules are preserved. {{see|Double spacing}} One or two spaces may be and have been used after a colon. The older convention (designed to be used by typewriters and same-width fonts [i.e. Courier New]) was to use TWO spaces after a colon. The newer convention (designed for digital systems and different-width fonts [i.e. Arial and Times New Roman]) is that ONE space is sufficient. ==History== {{see|Colon (rhetoric)}} English ''colon'' is from Latin ''colon'' (plural ''cola''), itself from Greek κωλον "limb, member, portion", in [[rhetorics]] or [[prosody]] especially a part or section of a sentence or a rhythmical period of an utterance. In [[paleography]], a ''colon'' is a clause or group of clauses written as a line. The [[OED]] cites [[William Blades]]' ''The life and typography of [[William Caxton|W. Caxton]]'' (1882), p. 126: "The [[Greek grammarians]] [...] called a complete sentence a ''period'', a limb was a ''colon'', and a [[clause]] a ''[[comma]]''." Use of the '':'' symbol to mark the discontinuity of a grammatical construction, or a pause of a length intermediate between that of a [[semicolon]] and that of a [[full stop|period]], was introduced in [[English orthography]] around 1600. [[John Bullokar]], ''An English expositor'' (1616) glosses ''Colon'' as "A marke of a sentence not fully ended which is made with two prickes." [[John Mason]] in ''An essay on elocution'' (1748) prescribes "A Comma Stops the Voice while we may privately tell one, a Semi Colon two; a Colon three: and a Period four." ==Diacritical usage== [[Image:IPA length mark.png|20px|right|The IPA length mark]] A special triangular colon symbol is used in [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] to indicate that the preceding sound is [[length (phonetics)|long]]. Its form is that of two triangles, each a bit larger than a point of a standard colon, pointing toward each other. It is available in [[Unicode]] as ''modifier letter triangular colon'', Unicode U+31D0 ({{IPA|ː}}). A regular colon is often used as a fallback when this character is not available, and in the practical orthography of some languages (particularly in Mexico) which have a phonemic long/short distinction in vowels. ==Word-medial separator== In [[Finnish language|Finnish]] and [[Swedish language|Swedish]], the colon can appear inside words in a manner similar to the English [[apostrophe]], between a word (or abbreviation, especially an [[acronym]]) and its grammatical (mostly genitive) suffixes. In Swedish, it also occurs in names, for example [[Antonia Ax:son Johnson]] (''Ax:son'' for ''Axelson''). In Finnish it is used in [[loanword]]s and abbreviations; e.g., ''USA:han'' for the [[illative case]] of "USA". For loanwords ending orthographically in a consonant but phonetically in a vowel, the [[Apostrophe#To_separate_morphemes|apostrophe is used instead]]: e.g. ''show'n'' for the [[genitive case]] of the English loan "show" or ''Versailles'n'' for the French place name [[Versailles]]. ==Mathematics== The colon is also used in [[mathematics]], [[cartography]], [[scale model|model building]] and other fields to denote a [[ratio]] or a [[scale (ratio)|scale]], as in 3:1 (pronounced “three to one”). [[Unicode]] provides a distinct '''ratio''' character, Unicode U+2236 ({{unicode|∶}}) for mathematical usage. In [[logic]] and, correspondingly, when describing the characterizing property of a [[set]], it is used as an alternative to a [[vertical bar]], to mean “such that”. Example: <math>S = \{x \in \mathbb{R}\colon 1 < x < 3 \}</math> (''S'' is the set of (all and only) ''x'' in <math>\mathbb{R}</math> such that ''x'' is greater than 1 and smaller than 3) In many non-Anglophone countries the colon is used as a division sign: “''a'' divided by ''b''” is written as ''a'' '':'' ''b''. The combination with an equal sign, <math>:=\,</math>, is used for [[definition]]s. ==Computing== In [[computing]], the colon [[character (computing)|character]] is represented by [[ASCII]] code 58, and is located at [[Unicode]] [[Universal Character Set|code-point]] U+003A. The full-width (double-byte) equivalent, ''':''', is located at Unicode code point U+FF1A. The colon is quite often used as a special [[control character]] in many operating systems commands, [[Uniform Resource Locator|URL]]s, [[computer programming]] [[programming language|languages]], and in the [[path (computing)|path representation]] of several [[file system]]s. It is often used as a single post-fix [[delimiter]], signifying a token keyword had immediately preceded it or the transition from one mode of character string interpretation to another related mode. Some applications, such as the widely used [[MediaWiki]], utilize the colon as both a pre-fix and post-fix delimiter.<!-- Could work more wikimarkup into that as an example. ---> For a double colon see [[Paamayim Nekudotayim]]. ==Internet usage== On the [[Internet#The name Internet|Internet]] (online chats, email, message boards, etc.) a colon, or multiple colons, is sometimes used to denote an action or to emote. In this use it has the inverse function of quotation marks, denoting actions where unmarked text is assumed to be dialog. For example: :'''Tom:''' Pluto is so small, it should not be considered a planet. It is tiny! :'''Mark:''' Oh really? :Drops Pluto on Tom’s head: Still think it’s small now? Colons may also be used for sounds. :Click: Compare to the use of the [[asterisk]]. It also has the widespread usage of representing two vertically aligned eyes in a [[emoticon]], such as :-), :), :(, :P, :D, :O, etc. ==References== {{reflist}} ==External links== *[http://people.whitman.edu/~hashimiy/colonxmp.htm Some Examples of Colon Usage] [[Category:Punctuation]] [[Category:Typography]] [[ca:Dos punts]] [[cs:Dvojtečka]] [[da:Kolon]] [[de:Doppelpunkt]] [[es:Dos puntos]] [[eo:Dupunkto]] [[eu:Bi puntu (ikurra)]] [[fr:Deux-points]] [[hr:Dvotočje]] [[it:Due punti]] [[he:נקודתיים]] [[kk:Қос нүкте]] [[lt:Dvitaškis]] [[hu:Kettőspont]] [[nl:Dubbelepunt]] [[ja:コロン (記号)]] [[no:Kolon]] [[pl:Dwukropek]] [[pt:Dois pontos]] [[ru:Двоеточие]] [[simple:Colon (punctuation)]] [[sk:Dvojbodka]] [[sh:Dvotočka]] [[fi:Kaksoispiste]] [[sv:Kolon]] [[th:ทวิภาค]] [[tr:İki nokta]] [[zh:冒号]]