A reader found fault with this construction in a recent column:
An acknowledgement here: I had an intense appetite for Katrina news because I have family in New Orleans. But so do lots of our readers.
The reader said that a colon should be used after an independent clause, not a fragment. That’s true, of course. The first part of the first sentence, “An acknowledgment here,” is a fragment. The writer could have written: I must acknowledge something here: I had an intense appetite for Katrina news because I have family in New Orleans. The reader had another suggestion for a rewrite: I acknowledge my intense appetite for Katrina news because I, like many readers, have family in New Orleans.
A colon is a signal that something else is coming. It often introduces a list or an amplification.
Here are the uses for colons:
- * Use a colon to introduce a series only if the group of words preceding the colon is an independent clause. The fashion show featured today’s hottest designers: Betsey Johnson, Carmen Marc Valvo, Peter Som and Michael Kors. Don’t use a colon to introduce a list that is a subject complement, the object of a verb or the object of a preposition. The hottest fashion designers today are Betsey Johnson, Carmen Marc Valvo, Peter Som and Michael Kors. (The list is a subject complement in this sentence.)
- * Use a colon to introduce a restatement, a clarification or an example that follows an independent clause. We all noticed one thing about the man who ran across the football field at halftime: He was naked.
- * Use a colon to introduce a quote after an independent clause. President John F. Kennedy began his administration with a call for personal responsibility: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
- * Use colons after the salutation of a business letter, after the headings in a business memo, between the hour and minutes in the time of day, between a title and a subtitle, in Internet addresses and between the chapter and verse in a Bible citation.
Now, I return to the matter of sentence fragments. You remember that your English teacher told you that each sentence must have a subject and a verb. You should follow that rule.
Newspaper writers, though, use fragments quite often these days. They don’t do this because of ignorance — most of the time, that is. Writers have been told that fragments make their writing more conversational, a quality that newspapers and other printed mass media prize highly. In general, I don’t think fragments belong in print, but I recognize that fragments are part of modern style. I don’t change them in copy when I recognize that they serve a stylistic purpose.
The reader’s comment made me more aware of colons and sentence fragments. Last week, I strictly followed the rules of colon use. I also fixed some fragments in copy and found that most of the time I did not make the copy less conversational. I don’t know whether I made the copy any more or less readable to most people, but I thought about the reader who wrote about colon use and felt satisfied that he could not find fault with the constructions.
Keywords: grammar guide, language, writing
This article was originally posted by the Raleigh News & Observer, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Co.; is posted here to provide continuity; and is copyright © 2011 The News & Observer Publishing Company, which reserves the right to remove this post.