Should You Make a Dash for it?

Computers give us myriad ways to make our documents attractive, accurate and highly readable.

We all know what a hyphen is: that tiny horizontal line that shows a break in a word that starts on one line and jumps to the next.

Hyphens also join words to clarify meaning or to form a single idea from two or more words: small-business owner, son-in-law, fifty-five.

The hyphen, however, is just one of three horizontal lines that help us communicate clearly. There are two more: the en dash and the em dash.

En Dash
The en dash — so named because it is as wide as a capital letter N in your chosen font — is used to show duration:

• The theater will be open from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. for a special event.
• Children from ages 3 – 5 get in free.
• Please bring 2 – 4 dozen cookies to the holiday exchange.
• The Korean War lasted from 1950 – 1953.
• You’ll find the passage on pages 17 – 19.

Em Dash
The em dash — so named because it is as wide as a capital letter M in your chosen font — is used to show an abrupt change in thought within a sentence or to show an emphatic pause:

• I am tired of — or should I say completely disgusted with — the partisanship in congress.
• We will go to New York to see “Jersey Boys” in May — if my tax return arrives by then.

An em dash also sets off an author’s or composer’s name at the end of a quotation:

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” — Mark Twain

Don’t use a hyphen or old-fashioned double hyphen to express what really should be a dash. Keystroke combinations on your PC or Mac enable you to create the correct dash for your message.

Ruthless Editor follows The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law guidelines for word and punctuation usage. Webster's New World College Dictionary serves as a secondary reference.

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