Colon

I only use the colon to introduce a list in bullet form:

• a little bit
• like this
• see?
  
  

There are other grammatically correct uses for the colon but I find them ugly, because the colon seems more like a barrier.

Here’s a sentence with colon, followed by a list in sentence form.

"He made three points: First, the company was losing over a million dollars each month. Second, the stock price was lower than it had ever been. Third, no banks were willing to loan the company any more money."

Just use a full stop.

"He made three points. First, the company was losing over a million dollars each month. Second, the stock price was lower than it had ever been. Third, no banks were willing to loan the company any more money."

Here’s a sentence with two related clauses separated by a colon.

"I have very little time to learn the language: my new job starts in five weeks."

Just use a full stop.

"I have very little time to learn the language. My new job starts in five weeks."

Writing got easier when I threw most punctuation in the bin.

I only use the colon to introduce bulleted lists and leave everything else to my trusted friends:

• the full stop
• the comma