: Re: Should you only use colons and full stops in dialogues? Should you only use colons and full stops in dialogues? I thought about using a semi-colon in one of my dialogues, but I had second

@Ogunnowo420

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This may not be a popular view, but as I see it, punctuation is about meaning, and only indirectly about sound.

Speech includes a range of subtle variations in pitch, speed, volume, and pronunciation which all help to convey the intended meaning.  Writing doesn't have those — and no punctuation can represent them accurately.  So instead, punctuation has over time evolved to convey that meaning more directly.

(We see this in e.g. programming languages, where symbols have very precise meanings; but written language has been moving that way for centuries.)

That's why the various items of punctuation have specific uses, each expressing a different meaning.  Roughly speaking:

Full stops (‘periods’ in US English) separate sentences.
Commas separate related clauses, list items, and parenthetical phrases.
Colons introduce lists, examples, and explanations.
Semicolons separate independent clauses, and also list items where one or more items themselves contain commas.
An ellipsis (‘…’) indicates a trailing-off or unfinished sentence, or an omitted section of a quote.
Dashes can introduce parenthetical phrases, and more general pauses and breaks.

So the choice of punctuation isn't random, nor based on how long a speaker would pause (though there's likely to be an indirect relationship).  Instead, it depends on the exact meaning you want to convey.

And that applies whether the writing is representing someone's direct thoughts, or speech as reported in a newspaper or a novel or a script or whatever.

See for example this question.  And see this page and the bottom of this page for examples of how the choice of a colon or semicolon can affect the meaning in an unfortunate way!

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