Punctuation - the colon

The function of the colon is:

• To signal the special relationship between the parts before, and the parts after it. (Every man and woman has three aims: to live, to love, to learn.)
• To introduce a list. (I have mailed to you the following items: copy of cash book to year end, cheque butts, and deposit slips.)
• For the introuction of a formal or long quotation with such words as reads or read and writes or write. (Graeme Kinross-Smith, in his "Writer: A Working Guide for New Writers, writes of Virginia Wolf: "[She] expressed, more cogently than Richardson or Joyce perhaps, the ideas that led to the new way of looking at the world in fiction.") Note that a colon is also used before the subtitle of a book, as above.
• The colon is also used to: separate information, as in chapter and verse (John 3:16); act and scene (King Lear, Act Three: Scene Two); hour and minute (8:20 a.m.); volume and page reference (World Book, 8:320).

There are more but too many to list here. Every writer should have a good book on punctuation on their bookshelf so make this a priority for your reference library.

Punctuation – the Apostrophe

The apostrophe is one of the most misused punctuation marks in the English language, and its misuse is growing. The apostrophe is used for the following reasons:

• in place of a missing letter in contracted words, such as don't instead of do not, it's instead of it is, they're instead of they are, or an omission, such as the year of '66.
• to indicate possession, as in Tom's ball, Descartes's theorem, the judges' rulings. (Note that adding the apostrophe and an extra 's' to a word that already ends in 's' produces a different sound to that when only the apostrophe is added.)
• to indicate possession to the last word in a phrase or a compound – my mother-in-law's couch; the Member for Canberra's vote
• to indicate possession for joint ownership, the apostrophe is added to the last name on the list, for example, John and Mary's anniversary. If the thing is not owned jointly, use an apostrophe for each name, as in John's and Mary's birthday
• the apostrophe is also needed when you want to indicate a duration in time, for instance, in one minute's time…… or after ten years' experience…….
• you will also add an apostrophe to the word before a gerund, for example, In the event of David's resigning…… Note the two separate meanings in the following sentences, just by adding or not adding an apostrophe: I object to the visitor's speaking Italian. I object to the visitors speaking Italian.
• Use the apostrophe with certain plurals, such as do's and don'ts and M.D.'s

Don't use the apostrophe for phrases like one's and two's – this should be ones and twos, or for the '60's – should be the 60s, or the sixties.