The colon as we know it - two dots on a vertical line - was first recorded in English around the year 1600 and its use varies across languages worldwide. It has several related but distinct uses in English, mainly to inform a reader that two pieces of information are connected. Here are five example...
Read more ›The first recorded use of the semicolon in English is in 1591; its cause was then championed a few years later by The Alchemist author Ben Johnson. Since then it has fallen out of common usage, superseded largely by a dash, but the rules governing it are relatively simple, and once grasped it can be...
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