Blogette: What AI has done for the colon

Just a small observation rather than condemnation as I woke up thinking about colons. 

What social media did for the humble hashtag, AI is doing to the colon.

No longer is it consigned to starting lists and introducing quotes. Now it is used liberally to provide emphasis, connect clauses and punctuate roughly a third of all sentences. 

The colon always could do those things, but since AI has become the norm (I use Claude regularly too, so don’t throw stones at me), it has begun a love affair with the colon, which has now stepped into the spotlight. 

Other things can connect clauses: em or en dashes, semi-colons, a simple comma and an ‘and’ or ‘or’.

Or we could just not connect them and have a full stop. Short sentences are pretty impactful too. I promise. 

But to the new wheat of the punctuation world, I have nothing but respect. No hate here. 

My only small gripe is that, like all things with writing, repetition weakens it. Too much use of the same technique makes it predictable.

If the aim of the colon is to wake us up, shake us up, then it will only work if we save it for the important points: like this one.