Grammar Greatness: Hyphen versus Dash smackdown.
The Hyphen – is a short horizontal line, and often confused with its longer cousin, the Dash.
Hyphens have three main uses …
- The Hyphen can be used to join words that need to be glued together (called “compound words” by grammar pros).
Examples
- Brazil is a Portuguese–speaking nation.
- The MiG–25 Foxbat is the world’s fastest–moving fighter jet.
- My father–in–law did not approve of me, at first.
2). The Hyphen can be used to stick a prefix to the start of a word.
Examples
- It was a post–natal ward.
- Trump will be the ex–president one day.
- They created a new sub–category just for me.
3). The Hyphen can be used to glue numbers together in a sentence.
Examples
- My father just celebrated his eighty–ninth birthday.
- I earned thirty–three thousand Dollars last year.
Then, there’s the Dash
The Dash is longer than the Hyphen and comes in two flavours, the En Dash (long) and Em Dash (extra-long).
The En Dash – is so-called because it used to be as long as the letter “N” during the days of physical typesetting in printers, while the Em Dash — was as long as the even wider “M”.
En Dashes are often used to write ranges, or to separate two statements instead of a comma.
En Dash Examples
- I won every Football prize on the team from 1999–2005.
- I hit the orc with my sword Blood-biter – hard!
Em Dashes are used for change of pace and dramatic effect, as well as as to herd off less important text.
Em Dash Examples
- I slammed my car into the Porsche chasing me — hey, nice pink furry dice!
- My friend Bob — a useless friend, but a pal all the same — was sadly my only friend who survived the zombie plague outbreak.
These two bad boys rarely feature in grammar/punctuation exams, but using hyphens instead of dashes in indie-published books leaves you looking like an amateur.
Category: Wizard of Words