The colon as a separator | The colon and semicolon | Punctuation | Khan Academy

Hello Garans!

So today we're going to talk about the third and final function of the colon. This final function of the colon is that it can be used as a separator.

So it might sound like we're talking about the comma again, right? The comma separates elements of a sentence, but the colon does it in kind of a different way.

So let's look at some examples. One common use of the colon as a separator is in titles. You can have two separate parts of the title, or like a title and a subtitle for a book, a movie, or a TV show, and there will be a colon in between them.

We can have something like "Ban: Adventures in Alaska." Another common use of the colon as a separator is in citations from a book or a poem, and pretty often the Bible.

For example, we can use it to separate the number of a Bible chapter from the number of the verse. If we want to reference 1 Corinthians 13:4, we can write it like "1 Corinthians 13:4," we can write it like "1 Corinthians 13 colon 4."

Finally, we can use the colon to separate the hour from the minutes in the time of day. If I want to tell someone what time it is, I can say, "It is now 10:09 a.m.," and between the 10, which is the hour of the day, and 09, which is the minutes, we put a colon.

So that's how the colon works as a separator. We can use it in titles, citations, and times. You can learn anything. Page out.