Do the colon and semicolon belong in dialogue

[Marina]

Do you guys use the : and the ; when writing dialogue?

I usually don't when I'm writing, because I think it's overly formal. But is it acceptable?

[Fuck Yeah Dion]

Every time I'm in a writing workshop, one or two people tell me not to use semicolons in dialogue. In response, I always inject semicolons into their pieces during their workshops. It's become a running joke between me and those few people.

That being said, my writing professors tell me it's all preference. Personally, I love semicolons, so I use them in dialogue, but I know many good writers who don't.

[Marina]

One of the things that irritates me about English grammar is that when it comes to punctuation, it becomes more about preferences than rules.

The life of an English major *sigh*

[suffixedishness]

I think it's alright!

Jane told them, "I'll be bringing three kinds of bread: sourdough, whole wheat, and white."

Jane told them, "I'll be bringing three kinds of bread; there'll be sourdough, whole wheat, and white."

I think it works for both. In the former, there's not really any other kind of punctuation that could go there, except for a dash, but I dislike those in dialogue unless someone's words have gotten cut off. In the latter, I see the semicolon as both tying Jane's speech together and having less of a pause than a period point would if the words were actually spoken.

EDIT: But true, it is preference.

[embonpoint]

I'd definitely use them! I don't really know how you'd get by without them, but I do love my punctuation.

[onlyaworkingtitle]

I vote for them. Just because people aren't aware of using the colon/semi-colon when they speak doesn't mean that they don't -- just like people who don't know the difference between an adjective and an adverb might still use them correctly in speech. That pause when Jane (in the above example) said "I'll be bringing three kinds of bread: sourdough, whole wheat, and white" is a colon, regardless of whether Jane knows what a colon is.

[iamahexagon]

I agree with the above, but I don't think that it belongs in all cases. I think that colons are appropriate, but I do not think that semicolons are appropriate in 99.9% or circumstances. Colons typically identify a list, and people will say lists. (I don't mean that lists are the colons only functions.) Semicolons, on the other hand, connect two sentences that are related. This, again, comes down to preference. To me, when the sentences could be separated, they should be, at least in dialogue. Then again, this can differ depending on the character for whom you're writing. If the person is, say, Stephen Fry, I would use semicolons because he seems like the type of person that would use a semicolon. But, if I were to write for, say, Lindsay Lohan, I probably wouldn't because I don't think that she is the type of person to use a semicolon.