Sad but true, I never got to grips with these nuts and bolts of the english language. When is it appropriate to use semi colons and colons? Fess up please, I know there must be loads of people here who know. I want to know too! Thanks Shanna :-)

ok, I just did this in Lang. class lol. A colon would be something you use to show a list, e.g. He could do many things: sew, cook, and make paper airplanes. or the ingrediants are: blah blah From what I remeber, you put a semi-colon between two different simple sentances... Her kite was red; she liked it. Alex "I hope that helped"

Thanking you kindly Shanna :-) needs all the help she can get.

Attached Link: Ted's Punctuation Guide

There are a number of online and hard copy resources that are good to have at hand.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. is well worth reading.

Remember, punctuation is simply a way of clarifying your meaning. If you have too many commas, a semicolon may be needed just to keep your sentence moving. A colon asks for a little extra attention by saying: "Hey, there's a list or a bit of dialogue here." Poor, misused apostrophe is for possessives, not plurals. A lot of it is just common sense...thinking about what you really want to say.

A semicolon is used to join two grammatically complete clauses, which means the clauses can also be written as two separate sentences. If they cannot, then you should not use a semicolon. The semicolon is used to show that the two sentences are closely linked. If you were to use a period in place of the examples below, the text would not flow as well, even though it would be grammatically correct. The following is an excerpt from The Elements of Style. A must have for everyone, and It's only $6. If two or more clauses grammatically complete and not joined by a conjunction are to form a single compound sentence, the proper mark of punctuation is a semicolon. Stevenson's romances are entertaining; they are full of exciting adventures. It is nearly half past five; we cannot reach town before dark.

Thanking you all kindly Shanna :-) lucky to be getting all the help she needs

I've also been told that you can use it to start a list of objects, such as 'they assembled the ingredients for gunpowder; sulfer, carbon, and potassium nitrate. Of course, I'm from the South, which is not known for being grammatically accurate, (our spelling isn't always up to snuff either..;) Oh yeah, the emoticon for 'I'm kidding or teasing' uses the semicolon. Not that I ever do that..;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

That's a new one to me, but I have never claimed to be an expert on these things. I was always taught that punctuation goes outside of quote marks unless it is part of the thought inside the quote marks...but our public information officer tells me that it all goes inside. So, there you go. Punctuation and grammar are fluid with the common usage of the times...not necessary written in stone. I will,however, fight the misuse of aphostrophes with my last breath.