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When addressing someone in an email (I understand grammar rules are pretty loose in this medium), should the sentence after the colon start with a capitalized letter? For example:

Example A:

I'm going to bring my car. David: What about you?

Example B:

I'm going to bring my car. David: what about you?

If a colon is the incorrect punctuation used in this scenario, please feel free to correct me.

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  • Assuming the "What about you?" is directed at David, I'd definitely use additional punctuation to set off "David: What about you?" to indicate it's only for David - put it on a separate line or in brackets. It's certainly not standard punctuation but you see all kinds of things in emails.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 17 at 11:00

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There are actually 5 examples of colon usage in your question. All three that have the word "example" before them are Ok.

Here is a short list of rules on how and when to use colons.

But the punctuation after the name "David" should be a comma instead. This is because you are using "direct address." This is also true in business writing and an email.

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I wouldn't use a colon here. It suggests that David is the speaker of "what about you?" A comma seems to me to be the correct punctuation. If you put "David" at the end of the sentence, it would have to be "What about you, David?"

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  • The example of putting "David" at the end of the sentence makes sense!
    – Ray
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 3:29
  • +1 to this comment for explaining the potential confusion resulting from the colon.
    – Chiara Coetzee
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 4:36
  • In practice there's unlikely to be any ambiguity. Consider context like an email/text message saying "How is everyone getting to the meeting? I'm going to bring my car. David: what about you?" It's not a playscript, why would I be providing dialog for David? And you put David at the start because it's directed at him and you attract his attention first. I think people get a bit prissy about non-standard punctuation and try and find things to make it seem wrong.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 17 at 11:02

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