Which sentence below is properly punctuated?

a.

Bertie had several people working for him; a private secretary, an administrative assistant, and a research aide.

b.

Bertie had several people working for him, a private secretary, an administrative assistant, and a research aide.

c.

Bertie had several people working for him: a private secretary, an administrative assistant, and a research aide

Question

English

Brendan Bush

11 June, 04:44

Which sentence below is properly punctuated?

a.

Bertie had several people working for him; a private secretary, an administrative assistant, and a research aide.

b.

Bertie had several people working for him, a private secretary, an administrative assistant, and a research aide.

c.

Bertie had several people working for him: a private secretary, an administrative assistant, and a research aide

+3

Answers (1)

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Helena Sexton · Answer 1

Option C is correctly punctuation. The colon is used because you're listing off the different types of employees Bertie has working for him. The types of a people are dependent clauses (that is, by themselves, they don't make a completely sentence). Had there been a bridging word or phrase like "including" or "for example" then you wouldn't need a colon because those words would serve the same function. A semicolon does not work in this case because that would be used to connect two independent clauses without a conjunction between them (i. e. "and", "or", "but" etc.).