The Turner Ink blog contains rants, bloopers, observations and opinions. It also has handy tips on grammar and punctuation such as colons: semicolons; and full stops. As well as some very useful ‘how tos’. Feel free to leave comments. Be nice though.

Turner Ink

Copywriting Services London

Posts tagged 'colons'

Turner Ink Christmas card bloopers – the answers

23rd
Dec
by Sarah Turner

Old Typewriter smallSo for those of you that received a Turner Ink Xmas card this year, these are the bloopers. How many did you get?

 

A Christmas tail [A classic homonym. It should be tale.]

Santa was having a bad day. 4 [up to number 10, spell out the number. So Four] of his elfs [elves] were throwing a sickie and the work experience elves werent [don't forget the apostrophe, weren't] producing toys fast enough. Santa was beginning to feel the pressure.

His blog needed updating. He hadn’t checked twitter [brand name, so Twitter] for at least 20 minites [minutes]. And people were giving him greif [grief] on Facebook.

Than [then], as he began to load his slay [another homonym, sleigh] one of the boards broke. And several large bags from Amazon fell to the ground: [a comma here not a colon] scattering their contents all over the place. Needless to say, santa [Cap S, Santa] was not in the best of moods.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang and he went to the door expecting another problem. But when he opened it; [comma here not a semicolon] there was just a little angle [like 18 degrees? Geddit? Yes, it should be angel of course] with a great big christmas [Christmas] tree.

The angel greeted him very cheerfully: [So lots of newspapers and mags have a colon to introduce speech. It's not needed though. A comma would suffice.]  “Merry Christmas Santa claus [cap C, Claus]. Isn’t it just a wonderful day [question mark needed]. I have a beautiful tree for you. See, isn’t its [it] just the loveliest Christmas Tree [lower case t, tree] you’ve ever seen? Where would you like me to put it?’ [You started with double speech marks, you need to end with double speech marks.]

And that’s how the angel on top of the Christmas tree tradition began.

Hands up who circled the And and But at the beginning of a sentence as an error? Back of the class!

Happy Christmas anyway.


Tags: capital letters, colons, commas, homonyms, semicolons
Posted in Bloopers, Word stuff | comments icon 1 Comment »

Punctuation: Make it a part of your daily workout

14th
Apr
by Sarah Turner

Used correctly, punctuation can often be the difference between a blah blah statement and a really powerful headline. Take this sign at my local gym.

Weight Loss sign

Our weight loss course lasts 12 weeks and the results could last a lifetime.

It’s not wrong. It’s just a bit dull. So what’s missing? How about a semicolon? A semicolon joins two complete sentences which are closely related.  

Our weight loss course lasts 12 weeks; the results could last a lifetime.

Yep, that’s getting better. This has got much more of a woo-hoo about it. It’s just 12 weeks! But you might stay thin, like, for-ever.

But I think what we really need here is a colon. Remember, a colon is used to show what comes after is an explanation or elaboration of what comes before. It’s a bit of a taa-daa! A drum roll if you like. Take a look.

Our weight loss course lasts 12 weeks: the results could last a lifetime.

Oooh now you’re talking. This has way more oomph. You could have the body of a model for the rest of your life just by turning up for 12 weeks. Awesome. Now, where do I sign-up?


Tags: colons, semicolons
Posted in Punctuation tips | comments icon No comments yet »

Cleanse your colon: when and how to use it properly

28th
Nov
by Sarah Turner

Using the colon correctly will amaze your friends and impress your colleagues. Hey, it may even get you a promotion.

The colon has two main uses:

1. It lets you know that what follows is an explanation or an elaboration of what came before

You need to know one thing about English cricket: we can’t bat to save our lives.

I’ll tell you what I’m going to do to get fit: go to the gym every day.

2. It introduces a list

Searching down the back of the sofa I found a load of treasures: two sweets, 55p, a biro lid, and the remote control.

You need to bring three things to the meeting: a note pad, a pen, and a sense of humour.

Remember that the words before the colon must form a complete sentence. Put a full stop instead of a colon to check the sentence can stand alone.


Tags: colons
Posted in Punctuation tips | comments icon No comments yet »

 

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