Grammer a Week 2: Dash Types · 11:54pm Jan 30th, 2015
This is Grammer a Week, the periodic blog program-thing where I address a frequently broken grammar rule and tell you how to fix it. This week's installment is about dash types. Depending on who you ask the question "How many different dash types are there?" you might get different responses. If you ask an ordinary person, they might answer just one. If you ask a good author, they might say three or four. If you ask a typesetter, they might say five or more.
If you ask me, I'll answer with four: the minus (−), the hyphen (-), the en dash (–), and the em dash (—). Each one of them has a specific use.
The minus
The minus sign is a fairly simple piece of punctuation to understand. It's used to indicate subtraction in math:
3−2=1
Really, it's just that simple. Use the minus sign when you need to minus something!
The hyphen
The hyphen is a little bit more complicated. You would use the hyphen when joining a compound term, like "merry-go-round," or "kind-hearted." Simple as that!
Or maybe not. Note that some phrases, like "car wash," are known as open terms, and require a space to join them. Alternatively, some other phrases, like "redhead," are known as closed terms, and don't require a hyphen or a space to join them. Whether a term is closed, open, or hyphenated is up for debate, and it depends on the author.
The en dash
Now things are getting interesting! The en dash is used to indicate "from . . . to" cases, as in a span of values:
Sorry, Twilight. Princess Celestia can't help you today because she's working 9–5.
"Of course you can find the material you're looking for!" Twilight exclaimed, gesturing to the wide expanse of books behind her. "We have all subjects here, A–Z!"
It can also be used to indicate two contrasting elements:
The Friendship Express runs east–west. If you need to head north, go for the Crystal Railway; it runs north–south.
The em dash
The em dash is the jack of all punctuation. It can basically be used to replace the comma, semicolon, colon, and parentheses! I guess you could punctuate your entire story with nothing but em dashes, but that would get old pretty quickly, I suspect. For this reason, the em dash is most often used for parenthetical phrases—like this one—in place of a pair of commas or parentheses:
Twilight ran up the side of the mountain—Mount Canterlot—as quickly as she could.
Rainbow waited impatiently by her mailbox day after day. She was promised an early copy of the book, after all. Eventually, the newest issue of Daring Do showed up—nearly a week before its scheduled release date.
You can also use the em dash to replace semicolons and colons:
Fluttershy eagerly rose from her bed; she couldn't wait to start her day.
Fluttershy eagerly rose from her bed—she couldn't wait to start her day.
There was only one solution: termination.
There was only one solution—termination.
You could also use it to indicate dialogue or prose that's interrupted (thank you to SpitFlame for reminding me!):
"I told you, Rainbow Dash, I love y—"
You can also omit things using an em dash. If you're omitting part of a word or name, use a 2-em dash (——). If you're omitting the entire word or name, use a 3-em dash(———). MLA citation, for example, when repeating authors in consecutive citations, requires that you omit the author's name in every citation after the first one and replace it with a 3-em dash.
Note that the em dash is something of an informal piece of punctuation. In formal writing, an aside is better punctuated with a pair of parentheses, and a compound sentence is better joined with a semicolon. In story writing, however, the em dash is acceptable, I think, especially for parenthetical elements.
Also note that some authors will prefer to use a spaced en dash ( – ) or even an spaced em dash ( — ) in place of a traditional em dash (—). These conventions are acceptable so long as you use them consistently.
How to form the dashes
You might have noticed that the average keyboard doesn't have four dash types. In fact, it normally only has one. If you're looking to form a minus or a hyphen, just use the dash that's on your computer keyboard—it's actually known as a hyphen-minus.
If you're looking to form an en dash, type Alt+0150 if you're on a Windows machine. Type Option+[hyphen-minus] if you're on an Apple. This should work most of the time. Alternatively, if you're typing in a modern word processor, like Microsoft Word, typing "words[space][hyphen-minus][space]more words" will auto-correct to a spaced en dash.
If you're looking to form an em dash, type Alt+0151 if you're on a Windows machine. Type Option+Shift+[hyphen-minus] if you're on an Apple. You can also form an em dash in a modern word processor by typing "words[hyphen-minus][hyphen-minus]more words." It will auto-correct to an em dash.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please post them below. I'm always open to suggestions for future Grammer a Week posts.
Huh, I didn't know about the en dash. I've always just used a hyphen. I thought it tended to look a little too short (the line making up the piece of punctuation) but I never realized I was doing it wrong...
2758692 They never really teach this stuff to you in high school, do they? I took an English class in university, and they didn't teach it to me there, either! The en dash is used just as often as the hyphen, and em dash even more so. They're probably the most used piece of punctuation that exists that doesn't have a dedicated key on the keyboard, and that makes it rather hard to type. That's why a lot of people—like Estee—use a doubled hyphen (--) in place of the en or em dash; it's easier to type.
I actually wrote a script that runs on my PC all the time so that whenever I type a doubled hyphen, it autocorrects to an em dash! So useful!
2759705
No, they didn't teach much about dashes in high school or my gen-ed English courses in college. I use em dashes plenty, since thanks to autocorrect changing two hyphens to an em dash (although not on fimfic apparently) it's simple to type them. I've just never really heard of the en dash before. All I'd really ever heard of was dash vs. hyphen.
You can also use the em dash to interrupt dialogue, just like th—
2771523 Ah, yes, I do know of that particular usage of the em dash; looks like I forgot to include it in my discussion. I actually use it all the time, so I guess it just slipped my mind. Thanks for reminding me!