According to the well-aimed statement of A.P. Chekhov, "punctuation marks are notes when reading". Points, commas, colons, a dash – without these and many other symbols cannot be presented registration of a written language, they allow to carry out its semantic partitioning. One of dividing punctuation marks is the colon.
Instruction
1. If a number of homogeneous parts is preceded by a general word, after it the colon is put. For example: "At a festival on the occasion of a City Day there were all: girls and guys, men and women, children and old men". A general word here – "all". The colon is also put if there are no general word preceding homogeneous parts or a phrase, but it is necessary to warn the reader about the subsequent transfer. For example: "Walking on the wood and picking mushrooms, we found: ten birch mushrooms, seven aspen mushrooms, two cepes and set of chanterelles".
2. It is important to note that if homogeneous parts are expressed by proper names, whether it be names of literary works, geographical names, etc., and they are preceded by the general application or the defined word (city, the river, the book), the colon in such cases is not put. The intonational warning pause characteristic of general words, when reading is also absent. For example: "During the summer the school student read works "War and peace", "Taras Bulbu", "Quiet Don" and others".
3. After a general word there can be words "somehow", "that is", "namely", "for example". In that case they separate from a general word of a comma, and the colon is put after them: "For lunch in the student's dining room different soups, somehow were offered: Russian cabbage soup, rassolnik, borsch, quenelles soup". If on homogeneous parts the offer does not come to an end, they also separate from a general word a colon, but after them the dash is put. For example: "And all around: and fields, are also expensive, and air – was impregnated with the genial evening sunshine".
4. In a complex sentence with one subordinate clause before the last the colon is put if in the main clause there are words warning about further explanation: "I dreamed only of one: that pain at last ceased". If there are no such words, the subordinate clause separates from the comma main thing.
5. In some cases the colon is put between parts of an asyndetic complex sentence. So, this punctuation mark is used when the second part of the conjunctionless offer explains, opens keeping of what it is told in the first part about (it is possible to insert "namely"). For example: "The teacher of ethics had one very important property: he to death did not love when sleep on its classes".
6. In a compound conjunctionless sentence the colon is also required if at its first part there are verbs "see", "hear", "feel", "nobility", etc. warning the reader that any description or statement of any fact will follow further. For example: "I know: we cannot be together". But at the absent intonation of prevention the comma can be put instead of a colon.
7. In the second part of a compound conjunctionless sentence the basis, the reason of can be specified what it is told at the beginning about, and in this case the colon is also required (it is possible to insert "because", "as"): "The barrier on the railway crossing was lowered: from the station there was a train". Also the second part can represent a direct question: "I walked on the wood and thought: why do I live? for what I was born?"