Grammar Check...is it...

[Overseasmom100]

So it is : or ; for a list of things

So I went out and bought; oranges, pears, apples, strawberries, kiwi fruits

OR

So I went out and bought: oranges, pears, apples, strawberries, kiwi fruits

So you need either of them in that sentence?

It's :

A colon precedes a list of items. A semi-colon is used to separate clauses in a sentence.

: before a list.

It should be '[whatever happened], so I went out and bought Oranges, Pears, Apples, Strawberries and Kiwi Fruit.'

fab thank you that explains it really well Accidentally

@NeverDropYourMoonCup

It should be '[whatever happened], so I went out and bought Oranges, Pears, Apples, Strawberries and Kiwi Fruit.'

I'll try that again (if the coding screws up a second time, I'm giving up for somebody else to do it.

[whatever happened], so I went out and bought Oranges, Pears, Apples, Strawberries and Kiwi Fruit.'

@NeverDropYourMoonCup

It should be '[whatever happened], so I went out and bought Oranges, Pears, Apples, Strawberries and Kiwi Fruit.'

There’s no need for fruits to have capital letters, they’re not proper nouns.

Actually, both are wrong, as (strictly) you need a complete clause before the colon.

I went out and bought a variety of fruit: oranges, apples, pears, bananas and a stunt pineapple.

I don't think the original sentence needed a : or ; so you'd need to change it as a pp said in order to fit one in

You can use a colon before the list, but you don’t really need to. Fruit names definitely don’t need capital letters, though!

Try pedants’ corner, OP.

Yes to @AccidentallyOnPurpose.

I generally see a semicolon (i.e. ";") as a 'harder' comma.

@KingscoteStaff

Actually, both are wrong, as (strictly) you need a complete clause before the colon.

I went out and bought a variety of fruit: oranges, apples, pears, bananas and a stunt pineapple.

Yes, this is correct; whatever comes before the colon has to make sense on its own.

PP's are right though that in that sentence there's no need for : and it's actually incorrect.

However if the example was just a random one to differentiate between use of : and ; then : before a list is an ok rule to remember them by.

@WhatMattersMost

Yes to *@AccidentallyOnPurpose*.

I generally see a semicolon (i.e. ";") as a 'harder' comma.

If anything, I would say it's more like a 'softer' full stop.

Semi-colons can sometimes be used where you would use a full stop, but people often use commas incorrectly and put them where it should be a full stop, or a semi-colon.