Page 136 - English Grammar - 7

� to take the place of a comma before a quotation or a direct speech. For example:
The headline read: ‘Taxi Driver Battles Gangsters’.
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The host made the announcement: “You are all staying for dinner.”
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� to separate the hour from minutes. For example:

I will reach there by 9:30 a.m.
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Semicolon (;)

The semicolon is used somewhere between a full stop and a comma.

Semicolons may be used to link two phrases or sentences without the use of a conjunction.
For example:

I like Goa; it is beautiful and peaceful.
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Semicolons are also used to separate lists which already contain a list of things separated

by commas. For example:

This morning I bought some bread, butter and cheese; tomatoes, cucumbers and
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brinjals; cakes, muffins and pastries.

Quotation Marks (‘ ... ’, ‘‘ ... ’’)
The quotation marks are used to write down the exact words of a speaker. For example:

Mother said, “Don’t forget to post the letter on the way.”
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Deepak said to the teacher, ‘Can I ask you a question?’.
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Apostrophe (’)
The apostrophe is used to show both contraction and possession.

For contractions, the apostrophe is used where a noun or a pronoun and a verb combine. It
often replaces a letter that has been dropped. For example:

is not―isn’t; was not―wasn’t; has not―hasn’t; had not―hadn’t
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For possession, the ’s is added to a noun. For example:
Punctuation Hyphen (-)
Julie’s cycle; the cat’s tail; the car’s bonnet
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The hyphen and the dash can be quite confusing.

A hyphen joins two or more words together. It is not separated by a space. For example:

run-off; son-in-law
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Dash (—)
The dash may be used like brackets to give additional information. For example:

My cousin—the one who works in the navy—is getting married this month.
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