The Canadian Style
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- - Close Punctuation
- Introduction to Punctuation
- Spacing
- The Period, Main purpose
- Imperatives, exclamations and indirect questions
- Ellipsis points
- Leaders
- Other uses
- Periods properly omitted
- The Question Mark, Main purpose
- Requests, indirect questions and other uses
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- The Semicolon, Between independent clauses
- The Semicolon, Co-ordinate elements
- Misuse and overuse
- The Colon, Between independent clauses
- Annunciatory function
- The Colon, Miscellaneous
- Misuse
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- Use of colon
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7.27 The Colon, Miscellaneous
In business letters and printed speeches, a colon follows the salutation:
- Dear Mr. Fox:
In personal letters, the colon is usually replaced by a comma:
- Dear Susan,
The colon is used to separate titles from subtitles. It is followed by a single space:
- Canada: A Story of Challenge
In references to books, plays, etc., colons separate chapter and verse, volume and page and act and scene, with no space on either side of the colon:
- Numbers 7:11
- History of Upper Canada, II:791
- Fortune and Men’s Eyes, I:i
Location and name of publisher are also separated by a colon. The colon is followed by a single space:
- Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press
See Chapter 9 Reference Matter for further information on the use of the colon in reference matter.
See Chapter 5 Numerical Expressions for uses of the colon with numerical expressions.
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