Punctuation Riddles

What do you call a full stop with a tail? → A COMMA

What do you call a full stop sitting on a comma? → A SEMI-COLON

What do you call a full stop sitting on top of a full stop? → A COLON

Three punctuation marks that cause confusion among natives and language learners alike! Let’s take a look …

The Comma

The comma may seem straightforward. We put it in between words in a list:

Last night I ate chicken, potatoes, peas and broccoli for my dinner.
The monster was big, scary and hairy!

The functionality of the comma doesn’t stop there though – it’s far more versatile than that! Here are a few examples of comma use:

Independent Clauses

I met Mike on the corner, we walked to work together, and then he went into his meeting.

Non-defining Relative Clauses

He was talking to the lady, who comes from Russia, when he heard the first clap of thunder.

Tag Questions

You were born in Manchester, weren’t you?

The Colon

The colon is what you need when a list needs an introduction:

I used to collect all sorts of things when I was young: key-rings, stamps, pennies and buttons.

Adding in ‘such as’ or ‘like’ would also work here, but a colon also does the trick.

The Semi-Colon

The semi-colon is sometimes used when a full-stop seems too final, but a comma just isn’t right. It can also avoid having to use a conjunction (such as ‘because’):

I love New York; it’s full of variety!

It’s also useful in lists that get a little complicated. Lists aren’t always made up of individual words – each item can have multiple words and even contain commas themselves:

The meeting was full of local business owners: John, the baker; Tiffany, the butcher; Samuel, the florist; and Jeffrey, the policeman.

If we just used commas here,
the sentence would be very difficult to understand.

Do you want to know a secret? A huge proportion of native speakers would not be able to explain the use of commas, colons and semi-colons to you, let alone use them. While you can’t get by without using commas, you could happily write at length without using a colon or semi-colon. Why settle for this though when you could develop writing skills that impress!