The Colon

In recent years, there has been a resurgence in people rising to the defense of the em-dash due to its usual employment in texts by Large Language Models. The humble colon however has been left behind.

When I was younger, I used to write posts in a small shoebox. I never sent them. But I signed my name in near cursive.

There’s something about seeing your words take shape. That made my mind slow down and allow words to take shape. To think about each sentence, after one finished. I didn’t know it then, but I think the colon does something similar now: it asks you to stop mid-sentence and trust there’s more worth saying.

It’s one of those things you learn in school but don’t really use. You fall back to periods and commas. But the colon has a special power: it let's a sentence breathe. It’s less dynamic than the semi-colon but more weighty, it’s sort of like a promise.

Maybe it can feel formal: you are right. We crave natural writing nowadays, something like the em dash messy, dynamic, and fast. But maybe in a world moving so fast: we just need to pause. And wait. For the conclusion of ideas.

Maybe slower writing isn’t so bad. It makes the reader pause. Wait. Breathe alongside the writer.

Most writing nowadays is feels quick and disposable. But slower writing is like a handwritten note. It’s like saying: I want you to keep this and hold it a little longer.