See Chapters 5–9 (documenting and indexing).Here are some more examples of how to use hyphens. They use a spaced en dash instead of the closed em dash.Īmerican English: However much he tried-and God knows he tried!-he couldn’t get the daily tally to balance.īritish English: However much he tried – and God knows he tried! – he couldn’t get the daily tally to balance.Įxamples of Hyphens and Dashes in Sentences When he called his cats - Pinot Gris Gris, Merlot, and Copainée - everyone in the dorm showed up at his door.īritish writers have a different use standard. However Associated Press (AP) style guidelines (common in journalism) require spaces before and after em dashes, unlike most American usage. The watchman-he had been sleeping half the night-arrived in an angry mood.Īmerican English requires for there to be no space before or after the em dash.The Renaissance artists who broke with spiritual tradition-Giotto, Titian, Masaccio-represented human form over saintliness.This punctuation mark sets phrases apart from the main body of a sentence.Īn em dash is used to set off text that amplifies or explains an element in a sentence.Ĭommas, parentheses, and colons may perform a similar function, but em dashes are more noticeable Use em dashes to emphasize the words your are amplifying or setting apart: The em dash is the most commonly used dash. Notice that there are no spaces before or after en dashes. The nursing home–hospital connection (open compound to single word). The post–World War I years (open compound adjective).The en dash also connects hyphenated phrases in a compound adjective or two open (no hyphen) compound phrases, like these: His college years, 2008–2012, marked the beginning of his interest in astrophysics.Primarily the en dash connects numbers, and sometimes words, to indicate a range or a span. We don’t think of typesetting in general writing because word processors do the work for us, but just know the en is short and the em is long.ĭashes work to bring attention to a phrase or indicate that a phrase is additional information.Įach dash has a different use: they are not interchangeable. The en dash takes up the space of the letter N and the em dash, the letter M. There are two types of dashes: the em dash and the en dash.Įn and em, short and long, dashes are named after the space they take in typesetting. What Is a Dash and When Should It Be Used? On the other hand, writing a fraction like a third or a quarter does not require a hyphen. Use hyphens with written numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine and with fractions like two-thirds or one-fifth. We can use a hyphen to separate letter collisions, which are letters that might be confusing when next to each other in a word (e.g. Sometimes, these words are made with prefixes (e.g. sister-in-law) or a compound modifier.Ĭompound modifiers are two words that make one adjective when combined with a hyphen (e.g. We typically use hyphens to create compound words, although not all compound words are hyphenated.Ī hyphenated compound word can be a compound noun (e.g. Use the hyphen to join two or more words together. The hyphen is the shortest linear punctuation mark. What Is a Hyphen & When Should It Be Used? The editor will correct your dash and hyphen errors, as well as other grammar, style, and mechanics errors. If punctuation marks like dashes and hyphens confuse you, try out ProWritingAid’s free grammar checker. Once you know the difference and when and why to use hyphens and dashes, you’ll write with confidence and express your meaning effectively to your readers.Ī hyphen’s primary purpose is to link two or more words together.ĭashes typically indicate a series, sequence, or they set phrases apart, depending on the type of dash used. What’s the Difference Between a Hyphen vs Dash?
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