Grammar Girl Podcasts

Grammar Girl Podcasts

Episode 241: Colons

The goal of this podcast is to show the listener how to use colons. The author does this by illustrating the mistakes that people make when they use colons, and she shows the listener the appropriate way of using the. She notes that people should not use colons in sentence fragments, but that they should use them after forming statements, which are complete sentences. Most people tend to use a colon before ‘are’ and this is wrong, since that does not form a complete sentence. For instance, the statement “my favorite things in the world are: happiness, time, and emotion” is wrong. If the person wants to write the statement using a colon, she can rewrite the sentence as, “these are my favorite things in the world: time, happiness, and emotion.” She shows the listeners how to identify whether they are using colons in the correct manner, by replacing the colon with the word ‘namely’. The author talks about spacing after colons, and she notes that people should put one space after a colon. She discusses the issue of capitalization, and she notes that one should not capitalize the first word that comes after a colon when introducing something. She recommends that people should not capitalize the word after a colon, even if it is part of a complete sentence. She mentions some of the other uses of colons, including writing citations and writing the time.

Examples of the right way to use the new skill

  1. The correct way of using colons should be as follows: when writing the time, introducing a list, and formatting citations.
  2. I went to the market and bought the following items: food, fruits, and vegetables

Episode 261: A versus An

The objective of this podcast is to illustrate how to use A or An. The author notes that people get confused when using the two articles in writing. Many people use ‘a’ when using consonants and they use ‘an’ when using vowels. The author notes that the difference in usage might not be so clear, especially when using words beginning with ‘h’ or ‘o’. The author uses words such as ‘hour’ and ‘one-track mind’ using the articles. The author notes that contrary to popular opinion, one should not look at the first letter that begins a word when deciding to use ‘a’ or ‘an’, but should determine whether to use the article based on the sound of the word. She points out that confusion can arise when using American or British English since they have different pronunciation and spelling of words. For instance, the word ‘herb’ in often pronounced as ‘erb’ in American English. The author mentions something about definite and indefinite article. The definite article ‘the’ speaks of a specific item, while the indefinite articles ‘a’ and ‘an’ speak of any item. It is important to know and understand the proper pronunciation of words as this will help someone know the correct way of using the indefinite articles. Even words that begin with the same letter can use different definite articles. Examples of sentences

  1. It was an honor for me to attend the musical concert that happened during the weekend
  2. The fourth of July is a historic event for many Americans
  3. I forgot to carry an umbrella and I got soaked when it rained
  4. I think that the love of food is a universal thing.

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