Question

Select the correctly punctuated sentence:
A) Spain is a beautiful country; the beache’s are warm, sandy and spotlessly clean.
B) Spain is a beautiful country: the beaches are warm, sandy and spotlessly clean.
C) Spain is a beautiful country, the beaches are warm, sandy and spotlessly clean.
D) Spain is a beautiful country; the beaches are warm, sandy and spotlessly clean.

Answer 1

Hint: Every sentence is made of phrases and clauses. Sometimes a sentence may have more than one phrase or clause. In such cases, we use conjunctions or punctuation to connect the two phrases or clauses. Depending on whether it is a phrase, a dependent clause or an independent clause, we use different types of punctuation.

Complete answer:
In the given sentence, there are two clauses. The first clause tells us that ‘Spain is a beautiful country’ and the second clause tells us the characteristics of beaches.
Option A) In the first option the two clauses are connected by a semicolon, which is correct. A semicolon is used to connect two clauses that are not dependent on each other. Next we have and apostrophe ‘s’ after ‘beache’. This does not make any sense, as ‘beache’ is an incorrect word. Therefore, this option is incorrect.
Option B) In this option, the two independent clauses are connected by a colon. This is not correct because a colon is always used when it has to be followed by a list or a definition or an explanation. We do not see any of these in the second clause. Therefore, this option is also incorrect.
Option C) In this option, the two clauses are connected by a comma. Commas are used to connect clauses that are dependent on each other. Such is not the case in this question. The clauses are independent. Thus, this option is incorrect.
Option D) In this option the two clauses which are independent of each other are connected together by a semicolon. This is correct. Also, the commas in the second clause are used in the correct places and no unnecessary punctuation is used here. Therefore, this option is correct.

Therefore the correct answer is option ‘D’.

Note: We saw that the apostrophe ‘s’ was used incorrectly in option (A). It is supposed to be used when we talk about the possessive case of a noun. For e.g. Spain’s beaches are beautiful. Here, we are talking about the beaches that belong to Spain. It is also used when we need to write the plural forms of letters or abbreviation. For e.g. I got five A’s on my report card.