Question

Select the correctly punctuated sentence.

A) I can’t see Tim’s car, there must have been an accident.
B) I cant see Tim’s car: there must have been an accident.
C) I can’t see Tim’s car there must have been an accident.
D) I can’t see Tim’s car; there must have been an accident.

Answer 1

Hint: When two words are joined together, the joined word contains an apostrophe. There is a pause in the sentence, which also needs to be punctuated.

Complete answer:
 Punctuation is the use of spacing, conventional signs, and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of the written text, whether read silently or aloud. This helps us to understand, as accurately as possible, what the other person is trying to say.
Usually, when two words are contracted, there is a letter missing. To compensate for the missing letter, we add an apostrophe. For example, the apostrophe in ‘aren’t’ represents the omitted ‘o’.
We use a comma for a shorter pause and a semi-colon for a longer one.

Now, let’s look at our given options:

A) I can’t see Tim’s car, there must have been an accident. - This sentence contains the correct usage of apostrophes, one for a contracted word, and one for possession. However, we need a longer pause in the sentence, so the comma is incorrect. So, this is an incorrect option.
B) I cant see Tim’s car: there must have been an accident. - This sentence is completely incorrectly punctuated. There is an apostrophe missing and the use of the colon is incorrect. So, this option is incorrect.
C) I can’t see Tim’s car there must have been an accident. - This sentence is also incorrect as there is no punctuation between the two separate sentences. So, this is an incorrect option.
D) I can’t see Tim’s car; there must have been an accident. - This sentence contains the correct apostrophes. It also contains a semicolon which denotes a longer pause, in order to separate the two sentences. So, this is the correct option.

Therefore Option ‘D’ is the correct answer

Note: Go through each option and check each apostrophe. Try to find out which punctuation mark can best separate the two sentences. Choose the correct option.