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punctuation - What is the difference between using a colon and a semi-colon to join two sentences?


I've seen a few questions on this site relating to semi-colons, which I believe I correctly understand, but what I'm not as clear about is colons. For example:



The man ate the apple; it tasted good.



Is this not correctly also written as:



The man ate the apple: it tasted good.



In this case, what is the difference between the two sentences?



Answer



In your example, the first one is correct but the second one is incorrect.


Use a semi-colon to connect two related independent clauses.



They took the money from the vault; they took it quickly.



The ideas are related, the clauses stand on their own, semi-colon is OK here.


Use a colon to separate equal things (like an '=' sign).



Just remember three things: be on time, bring the money, and come alone.



The things here = those three items.


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