1182. This week, we solve the mystery of the colon: when do you actually need to capitalize the next word? We compare AP, Chicago, and MLA styles to give you a clear answer. Then, we look at common words with surprisingly "shadowy" histories — from the sudden appearance of the word "dog" to the apocryphal origin of "quiz."
1182. This week, we solve the mystery of the colon: when do you actually need to capitalize the next word? We compare AP, Chicago, and MLA styles to give you a clear answer. Then, we look at common words with surprisingly "shadowy" histories — from the sudden appearance of the word "dog" to the apocryphal origin of "quiz."
The words with no origins segment was written by Karen Lunde. Find her on igofirst.org.
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and today we’re talking about colons, and then we'll talk about words with no known origin.
by Mignon Fogarty
The mark of expectation or addition. That's what one of my favorite old grammar books, called "Punctuate It Right," calls the colon because it signals that what comes next is directly related to the previous sentence. Often, it’s almost a definition of what came before.
How you use a colon depends on which style guide you follow, and it can be tricky because in some cases, the styles differ a lot.
The first thing you have to decide is whether to capitalize the first word after the colon.
In both Associated Press style and Chicago style, you capitalize the first word after a colon whenever what comes next is a complete sentence:
Squiggly has one dream [colon]: He wants to become a chocolatier.
The part after the colon defines Squiggly's dream, and the way it is written, the word "he" is capitalized because it starts a complete sentence.
And if the part that comes after the colon isn't a complete sentence, keep the first word lowercase:
Squiggly has one dream [colon]: becoming a chocolatier. [with a lowercase B in "becoming"]
Simple, right? Sure, until we get to the MLA Handbook from the Modern Language Association, a style often used by people in the humanities. In other words, if you're in high school or college, you might use it to write your papers, and it has a particularly tricky style when it comes to colons.
In MLA style, you only capitalize the first word after a colon if it starts more than one complete sentence or if it's a question:
So you'd keep the word "he" lowercase in our previously example:
Squiggly has one dream [colon]: he wants to become a chocolatier. [now with a lowercase H in he]
If you have two sentences after the colon that both relate to what came before, you capitalize the H in "he" in MLA style:
Squiggly has one dream [colon]: He wants to become a chocolatier. In fact, he's already reserved his place in a class in France.
And if the next part is a question, you capitalize the first word:
Aardvark pointed out a problem with the plan: How would Squiggly pay for his airfare? [with a capital H in "how"]
So that's our first decision point: In AP style and Chicago style, capitalize the first word after a colon if it's a complete sentence. In MLA style, capitalize the first word only if it starts more than one complete sentence or is a question.
The next decision you have to make about colons comes when you're introducing a list. And for this rule, the AP is the odd one out.
Chicago style and MLA style both want an introductory line before a list to be a complete sentence if you're going to use a colon.
They'd use a colon in something like "Grammar Girl has two favorite hobbies [colon]: watching clouds and seeing how long she can stand on one foot," because "Grammar Girl has two favorite hobbies" is a complete sentence.
But they don't allow for a colon if that first part is a fragment. For example, if you start with "Grammar Girl's hobbies are" you just write "watching clouds and seeing how long she can stand on one foot" without any colon in between, whether it's a sentence in a paragraph or a vertical list.
And because people like to see colons after the introductory line to a vertical list, it's nicest to include something like "the following" to make it a complete sentence so you can use the colon in Chicago and MLA style.
Now AP style recommends a colon after a complete introductory sentence too, but it also lets you put a colon after a sentence fragment. So in AP style, you can write "Grammar Girl's favorite hobbies are [colon]: watching clouds and seeing how long she can stand on one foot."
Chicago specifically calls this a "common misuse," but AP says go right ahead.
The most common place I see people do this, even if they aren't normally fans of AP style, is before a bulleted list. It can sound stuffy to put something like "the following" at the end of your introduction to make it a complete sentence so you can "legally" put a colon there, but the colon looks nice. In fact it almost feels like something is missing if there isn't a colon. So people use it. But you shouldn't if you're strictly required to follow Chicago or MLA style.
So to sum up this part, all three major styles let you put a colon after a complete sentence to introduce a list, but only AP style lets you put a colon after a sentence fragment to introduce a list.
Fortunately, there are at least a couple of colon rules on which all three of these style guides agree.
First, put one space after a colon.
People often argue about how many spaces to put after a period (the short answer is that one space is more common these days), and the question comes up with colons too. When people used typewriters, the style was to put two spaces after a colon; but now that almost everyone uses computers with word processing software, the common style is to put one space after a colon just like you would for a period.
Colons after short introductory words
And second, colons are fine after short introductory words or phrases like “pros” and “cons” that are more like titles than sentences, and after names of people in a dialogue or transcript of a conversation.
Finally, if you don’t have to follow a specific style guide, you can just pick the rules you like best. But you still want to be consistent so your writing looks professional, so write it down. Making your own personal style sheet will make it easier to be consistent in the future.
by Karen Lunde
So, what do the words "dog," "girl," and "quiz" have in common?
They’re words you probably use, but their histories are mysteries! The origins of these words are shadowy, debated, or sometimes just plain unknown. And what's interesting is that we're not talking about obscure words or slang here. Some of our most everyday words don't have clear backstories.
Let’s start with "dog." You'd be hard-pressed to find an English-speaking person who has no clue what a dog is. But good luck finding a person who knows why the word "dog" exists or how it came to be our everyday term for a lovable canine.
Old English had the word "hund," related to "hound," and that’s what people used for centuries. Then suddenly, in the 11th century, the word "dog" pops up in writing — spelled D-O-C-G-A — but no one knows where it came from or why it stuck.
"Dog" eventually replaced "hound" in common speech, but the original source is still unknown.
And here’s another one that seems like it should have a clear history: "girl." In Middle English, the word "G-Y-R-L" (or "G-E-R-L-E") meant a child of either sex. It didn’t refer specifically to females until later. As for where it came from before that? Etymologists admit: we just don’t know. It’s one of those words that seems to have appeared out of the fog.
Some of my favorite people are language nerds — but did you know the word "nerd" doesn’t have a clear-cut origin? Dr. Seuss used it in his 1950 book "If I Ran the Zoo," listing a creature called a "Nerd." That’s the first printed use we know of. But just a few years later, the word was already being used as slang for a person who's socially awkward or extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about a niche or subject. (Present company included, I guess!)
So where did "nerd" really come from? Some suggest it evolved from an older slang word, "nert" — N-E-R-T — which meant a nutty or a foolish person. Others think Seuss just made it up and it caught on. Either way, the full story is still fuzzy.
Here’s a fun one: the word "quiz." You might’ve heard a story that a Dublin theater manager invented the word as part of a bet. The tale goes that he claimed he could introduce a new word into the English language within 48 hours. So he scribbled the nonsense word "quiz" all over town, and the public assumed it meant something mysterious or puzzling.
And it’s a charming story — but it’s probably apocryphal. "Quiz" was already used in English to describe a strange person before it ever meant a test. And the exam-related meaning didn’t catch on until the 19th century. So while the theater tale makes a great anecdote, linguists say the true origin of "quiz" is still uncertain.
Now, "twerp" may be fun to say, but it’s another word whose origin is, well, a little bit twerpy. It pops up in the 1920s and ’30s, usually as an insult for a silly or annoying person. One popular theory claims it came from a real person — T.W. Earp, a student at Oxford — but that seems to be more of a clever backronym than a historical fact. The truth is, no one really knows where "twerp" came from. It may have been invented out of thin air, or it could be a twist on older dialect words. Either way, it’s survived a century with no clear ancestry.
Next, "skedaddle!" sounds like a word from a cartoon, but it actually took off during the U.S. Civil War. Soldiers used it to mean "run away in a hurry," and that meaning stuck. But where did it come from? Some think it might be linked to Scottish dialect words like "scaddle," meaning to scatter or flee. Others suggest it was just made up for the moment — a nonsense word that sounded like what it meant. Either way, it’s one of those words that sprang into public use during a specific moment in history and never quite gave up its mystery.
And finally — let’s end with a word that’s been used to describe Americans for centuries: "Yankee." The term dates back at least to the 1600s when it appears in English writings as a Dutch surname or nickname, and by the mid-1700s it was used by the British as a nickname for Dutch settlers in what’s now New York. Some etymologists think it comes from "Janke [[YAN-keh]]," a Dutch diminutive of Jan or John. And that's the prevailing theory. Older theories that have been largely dismissed are that it might have come from a Cherokee word "eankke," which meant "slave" or "coward," that some Virginians used to describe other colonists who wouldn't help them in a war against the Cherokees, or from the word "Yengees," which was another indigenous word for "English." What we know for sure is that "Yankee" has been used affectionately, mockingly, and politically throughout history — and its origins are just as layered as its meanings.
Other surprisingly common words that turn up as "origin unknown" in the Oxford English Dictionary include "bird," "gun," "beach," "puzzle," and "hug."
And that’s part of what makes language so fascinating: even the most ordinary words can have extraordinary gaps in their past.
That segment was written by Karen Lunde, a career writer and former Quick & Dirty Tips editor. She writes I'll Go First, a Substack where she shares personal essays and memoir, then hands you a weekly writing prompt and a metaphorical pen. Find her on igofirst.org.
Finally, I have another familect story from Jeanette.
"Hey Mignon, this is Jeanette. … Another familect that we have is the superstition of rabbit, rabbit. So at the end of the month, last day of the month, right before you go to bed, you say the words 'rabbit, rabbit' and then nothing else. And then when you wake up in the morning, the very first words you say on the first day of the next month are 'rabbit, rabbit.' And if you achieve that, you get to make a wish and that wish comes true. I'd love to know anything you can find about these two familects. Thanks."
This is another interesting one that I hadn't heard before, Jeanette, but it turns out it's a somewhat well-known superstition, with lots of famous people doing it too.
I found a mention of it in Notes and Queries on the Internet Archive from 1909 with a story and question that's surprisingly similar to yours. Someone with the initials A.M. wrote, "My two daughters are in the habit of saying "Rabbits" on the first day of each month. The word must be spoken aloud, and be the first word said in the month. It brings luck for that month. Other children, I find, use the same formula. I shall be glad to know if this is a common and old custom, and what is the meaning of the word "rabbits."
Well, history.com has a piece about it titled "Why do people say 'rabbit, rabbit' at the start of each month," that refers to the same 1909 piece and says Sarah Jessica Parker and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were both known to do it, although nobody knows why.
The best sources of information I found were an interview Martha Barnette from "A Way with Words" gave to NPR way back in 2013 and a Grammarphobia blog from Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman in 2016. They identified more famous people who hold or held the superstition, including the author Simon Winchester and actress Gilda Radner (who said "bunny, bunny"), and some pop culture places it popped up, including the Nickelodeon children's network, a 1962 children's mystery series called "The Mystery of the Emeralds," and the 1999 novel "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" by Salman Rushdie.
Martha said that if you forget to say "rabbit, rabbit" first thing in the morning on the first of the month, you can fix it by saying "tibbar, tibbar" as the last thing before you go to bed ("rabbit" backwards), and another variation is saying "white rabbit" in the morning and "black rabbit" as a fix at night if you forget.
But still, the only thing I saw anyone come up with as a reason had to do generally with the idea that rabbits are good luck, which also shows up in the superstition of carrying a rabbit's foot for luck.
So this is definitely not a familect, but it is kind of a fun old superstition that you share with many people in the English-speaking world. I couldn't find anything about it outside of Britain and the U.S., so if you listen in another country and have a "rabbit, rabbit"-like tradition, please let me know!
And thanks for the call Jeanette!
And as much as I also love these fun little stories and research projects, I'm nearly out of familects, and I'd love to get yours. These are things your family says that nobody else would understand. Your private language that comes from some inside story, like saying "hoopsatorem" to congratulate each other because you read a sign wrong once, or like saying "Well, it's no chocolate river" when you encounter something disappointing because of that one time you were really disappointed when you finally saw the advertised chocolate river at a restaurant. I know many of you have stories you haven't shared yet, so please give me a call or record it for me to share on the show. And you'll find all the information on how to do that in the show notes.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Morgan Christianson; Rebekah Sebastian; Dan Feierabend; Maram Elnagheeb; Steven Schapansky, Holly Hutchings; and Nat Hoopes, who was in an all-male a cappella group in college.
And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.
That's all. Thanks for listening.