# Written vs spoken language conventions **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 29, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-vs-spoken-language-conventions/941063 "2021-04-29T20:26:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-vs-spoken-language-conventions/941063/21 "2021-04-30T17:39:55Z")
I found this very informative. [http://m.nautil.us/issue/54/the-unspoken/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-english-sentence](http://m.nautil.us/issue/54/the-unspoken/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-english-sentence) ---
**Author:** ![PointyOintment](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pointyointment/32/7777_2.png) [@PointyOintment](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PointyOintment)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-vs-spoken-language-conventions/941063/22 "2021-04-30T20:59:52Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Do you also talk more formally than most people? Strangely, I don’t think I do. Actually, it’s probably my formality in textual communication that’s strange: I tend to reject formality in most areas. > [@DemonTree](#): > > Now I’m thinking of the difference between how someone talks when giving a speech or a lecture, vs in conversation. Are there similar conventions one can follow to make speech easier for the listener to understand? Unlike with writing I don’t think I’ve ever been taught any. Me neither. I’d be interested in learning stuff like that, if there’s anything on it. Surely there is, but I wouldn’t know how to start searching for it. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-vs-spoken-language-conventions/941063/23 "2021-04-30T21:05:45Z")
> [@PointyOintment](#): > > Actually, it’s probably my formality in textual communication that’s strange: I tend to reject formality in most areas. What made you decide to use a colon here? If you were speaking instead of writing, would you have known that particular pause would be followed by an explanation _before_ you actually formulated the explanation? Or is this something where you had a comma or period, then later decided a colon would help communicate the relationship between the two clauses _better_ than simply speaking them could? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-vs-spoken-language-conventions/941063/24 "2021-04-30T21:35:45Z")
Is it correct to use a colon there or should it be a semi-colon? ---
**Author:** ![PointyOintment](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pointyointment/32/7777_2.png) [@PointyOintment](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PointyOintment)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-vs-spoken-language-conventions/941063/25 "2021-05-01T01:04:38Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > [link to Nautilus article (NB: paywall; 2 free articles/month)] That was very interesting. I suppose my formality in textual communication maybe isn’t actually as strange as I thought when I wrote my earlier post, though reading that article doesn’t change the fact that other people I’ve texted/IMed with have generally done so much less formally than I. It also applies to forums, Reddit, etc., but I think most people are a bit more formal in those contexts. > **Tangent** > > Its title also reminded me of how I’ve noticed that Google’s grammar checker seems to be damaging the English language\* by offering erroneous “corrections”, but that’ll have to be separate thread (once I find the short writeup I did on it). > > \*I’m not railing against linguistic evolution here. What I see is a unilateral action by a very powerful entity that’s (probably inadvertently) making the language less expressive and more confusing. Anyway, for another thread. > **Tangential question unrelated to above tangent** > > Anybody know the name of the use of brackets/parentheses to show sentence structure, as shown in this parsing of the sentence from the US Declaration of Independence at the top of the Nautilus article? I thought it was “parenthetical language”, but that didn’t turn out to find anything related to it, last time I searched. > > > [@the Nautilus article](#): > > > > “[[[When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people [to dissolve the political bands [which have connected them with another]] and [to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station [to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them]]], a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires [that they should declare the causes [which impel them to the separation]]].” > [@Max\_S](#): > > > [@PointyOintment](#): > > > > Actually, it’s probably my formality in textual communication that’s strange: I tend to reject formality in most areas. > > What made you decide to use a colon here? > > If you were speaking instead of writing, would you have known that particular pause would be followed by an explanation _before_ you actually formulated the explanation? Or is this something where you had a comma or period, then later decided a colon would help communicate the relationship between the two clauses _better_ than simply speaking them could? I think I thought to use the colon pretty early in formulating the sentence. I thought of what ideas I wanted to convey, and then the approximate sentence structure and wording, and then the colon just seemed to suggest itself there. If I was speaking, I might have used something like “because” instead, or split it into two sentences, but I think the overall structure would have been similar. > [@DemonTree](#): > > Is it correct to use a colon there or should it be a semi-colon? I think it’s a valid use of a colon. But I would, wouldn’t I?: I wouldn’t’ve used it if I thought it was incorrect. It isn’t the only grammatically correct option there, though: a semicolon would be fine, as would an em dash. Their meanings would be subtly different, though: in a context like this, the colon implies “because” more strongly than the others do—probably because the others have more other uses. I used three colons in the above two paragraphs; are their meanings all clear? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-vs-spoken-language-conventions/941063.md?page=1)