Which sentence is punctuated correctly?

Which sentence is punctuated correctly?

The four ordinal directions are: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.

The four ordinal directions: are northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.

There are four ordinal directions: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.

Northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest are: the four ordinal directions.

Which sentence is punctuated correctly?

Be careful when you're running toward: a tree, a mailbox, or a lamppost.

Don't run toward: a tree, a mailbox, or a lamppost.

Don't run into any of the following: a tree, a mailbox, or a lamppost.

Be careful of running into: a tree, a mailbox, or a lamppost.

Which sentence correctly uses a colon to introduce the list?

Track, gymnastics, and ice hockey were the sports Carmina chose to pursue.

Carmina chose to pursue the following sports: track, gymnastics, and ice hockey.

Carmina narrowed her choices of sports to: track, gymnastics, and ice hockey.

For sports to pursue, Carmina chose: track, gymnastics, and ice hockey.

Carmina's three choices of sports were: track, gymnastics, and ice hockey.Which sentence is punctuated correctly?

Which sentence is punctuated correctly?

Always ask yourself a question like: “Am I pleased with the results?”

One question you should always ask yourself: “Am I pleased with the results?”

One question you should always ask yourself is: “Am I pleased with the results?”

Always ask yourself this question: “Am I pleased with the results?”Which punctuation belongs in the blank in each quotation?

Select comma or colon for each blank.

Comma Colon
The queen stood before her subjects and said the following___ “My loyal subjects, it is with great sorrow that I must inform you of the passing of my husband, the king. I assure you I will continue to rule as he did—with fairness and kindness.”

Ricardo shook his head as he grumbled___ “I wish I were in charge of deciding how we should all spend our time this Saturday.”

The defense attorney stood and boldly proclaimed this statement___ “My client is innocent of all charges. He has been an upstanding citizen of this state for thirty-seven years, and he has never—not once—been in a situation where he has acted less than honorably.”

1 Answer
Feb 22, 2018

The four ordinal directions are: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.

Explanation:

In this context, the colon indicates that a list is to follow so the second sentence cannot start with 'are' as it relates to all four of the directions, not just the first one.
In the third sentence, the colon should be replaced with a 'hyphen/dash (-).
In the last sentence there should be no internal punctuation but it is also not grammatically accepted to start the sentence with a common noun.