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Reg Gothard - "Yonder Pedant"

Dash It—Who Knew?

How is it that something as unassuming as a punctuation mark can cause so much grief for so many people?

The apostrophe is perhaps the biggest cause of grief, but the numerous variations of dash and hyphen must come a close second. For me personally, they cause more pauses—for thought—than the apostrophe.

Before we go any further, let me share a quote with you, courtesy of one of the editors of the Oxford University Press Stylebook. “If you take hyphens seriously, you will surely go mad.” I would extend that statement to include dashes.

You have been warned.

Variations

I find that many people are under the impression that there’s only one variety, known by two names, and that one refers to it informally as a dash and formally as a hyphen. Some might refer to it as a minus sign.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. For starters, hyphens and dashes aren’t the same thing at all, and when you delve a little deeper, you’ll discover that there are two different dashes and that the minus sign is its own entity. And if that wasn’t enough, some refer to dashes as “rules”.

Does it matter what they’re called? Possibly not.

Does it matter which one you use? It depends largely on who’s reading your writing, although there are cases when using the wrong one will throw your reader into confusion. A man—eating bear and a man-eating bear are not the same thing. One thing’s certain though—I will have to go through all my blog posts to correct my misuse of these little beasts, because in the course of research for this article I’ve realized that I’m guilty of some degree of dash abuse!

Naming the Tools

Let’s start by introducing the contents of the toolbox.

The Hyphen

The hyphen is that smallest of dashes. It’s the one that appears when you press the key to the right of the zero on your keyboard.

The En Dash (or Rule)

The en dash is the mama bear of these critters—not too short and not too long. It’s named “en dash” because its length is (or was) equal to the width of an “n” in the typeface being used.

Today, it’s variously defined as half the length of an em dash, twice the length of a hyphen, and the length of the dash in the Morse code for “N”. (Confession—I made that last one up.)

The Em Dash (or Rule)

The em dash is the least wee of the wee-little lines under discussion today. It’s named “em dash” because its length is (or was) equal to the width of an “m” in the typeface being used.

Today, multiple definitions exist.

  • Some sources define it as being three times as long as a hyphen. The same sources define the length of a hyphen as being one third the length of an em dash. Apparently this gives me permission to write a one-foot-long hyphen and a three-foot-long em dash. I suspect that’s not what is intended.
  • My Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines it as the width of an upper case M. Other sources claim it is the width of a lower case m.
  • The online Oxford Dictionary defines it as being equal to the height of the type size being used. Hart’s Rules explains that this is because of the ubiquity of proportional typefaces in digital typography.

There is also a 2-em dash and a 3-em dash, which I have chosen to omit from this article.

Which Should You Use?

“When you only have a hammer, you treat everything as if it were a nail.” —Abraham Maslow

If you take a look at your keyboard, you’ll see only one key that could help you dash away—the one to the right of the zero. If you have a numeric keypad, you’ll have the same character repeated there. One can be forgiven for regarding that lone key as a hammer and all the places where dashes are required as nail holes.

This behaviour has been reinforced unintentionally by the way in which typing skills are acquired. Back in the day, people (mostly of the female persuasion) would take typing lessons or even a typing course. These days, the vast majority of us, irrespective of gender, learn on the job. No doubt those typing courses would have covered such niceties as em dashes and how to represent them on a typewriter (two consecutive hyphens). There’s no consistent path these days along which such knowledge can be routed from person to person.

Until you discovered this article! (and similar articles elsewhere on the wonderweb.)

The following guidelines have been drawn from a variety of sources on both sides of the Atlantic. I have not attempted to distinguish the source of each individual guideline because… (insert the last couple of sentences in the introductory paragraph here.)

Less Is More

The minus sign (sometimes read as “less”, as in “seven less four is three”) adds one more artifact to the mix. It has its own Unicode value (U+2212), and is actually more similar in appearance to the en dash than the hyphen. However, unless you’re working extensively with arithmetic or mathematical materials, the hyphen will usually suffice as a minus sign.

Hyphenate When…

…you want to disambiguate. An old-furniture restorer is not the same as an old furniture restorer.

…you want to use complex adjectives. “The popcorn eating people in the cinema” conjures up images of a very poor “B” movie. “The popcorn-eating people in the cinema” clears things up nicely. “An inclusive, non faith specific name…” is just wrong. An “inclusive, non-faith-specific name…” is correct.

…you want to qualify a word with two or more preceding words. “…there are many ice and snow-related festivals…” is wrong. “…there are many ice- and snow-related festivals…” ties “ice” to “related” for the reader.

…you need to separate letters or numbers. Phone numbers can be separated with hyphens (e.g. 403-555-5555). ISBNs can also be separated with hyphens. If you want to spell something out, perhaps in direct speech, you’d separate the letters with hyphens; for example, “Where did you put the gifts from s-a-n-t-a?”

…you need to write out numbers from 21 to 99. Twenty-one; forty-three; eighty-seven.

…you need to split a word across lines. Word processors will do this for you, if you set your options to allow it. When you have your paragraph attributes set so that the text gets aligned to both the left and right margins, dividing words with a hyphen becomes useful, especially if your writing contains many longer words.

Compass points are hyphenated in British English, but concatenated in Canadian and American English. (UK: South-east; US/CAN: Southeast.) Intermediate compass point prefixes are hyphenated thus: south-south-east UK) and south-southeast (US/CAN).

En Dash-ate When…

…you need to type out an address that contains a suite or apartment number as well as a building number. For example, Suite number 318 in the building located at 2369 Acacia Avenue would be written thus: 318–2369 Acacia Avenue.

…you need to show a range of numbers or values such as “pages 23–31” or “Fred Bloggs (1936–1999)”. Don’t use it if the numbers require a minus sign (e.g., -5 to -13 Celsius, not -5–13 Celsius, since the minus sign gets lost). Don’t use an en dash with the word “from”—the construct “Reg worked from 1994–2006 at…” is wrong—“from” requires a corresponding “to”.

…you need to connect the names of two or more places. For example, “the Calgary–Edmonton corridor”.

…you need to indicate a collaboration or association of some kind. “The Harper–Trudeau contrast…” shows that the names are of two people, whereas “the Harper-Trudeau” contrast could be construed to refer to someone with the double-barrelled named of “Harper-Trudeau”.

…you need to connect two (or more) entities that are already either hyphenated or compounded. My examples here are inspired by examples from the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS).

  • Reg was born in the pre–flower power era.
  • Reg Gothard–style nonsense.
  • A pseudo-intellectual–quasi-authoritative article.

The CMS states that a sentence construction such as the last example would be improved by using a comma rather than the en dash.

Em Dash—the Leatherman™ in the Toolbox

This punctuation symbol is really versatile. My big issue with it is that it’s the ugly stepsister of punctuation—it really doesn’t look attractive. It looks abnormally long in proportional typefaces (in 12pt, it would be 12pts = 1/6 inch long). Despite that, one of my many faulty writing habits is that I tend to overuse the em dash.

Here are some of the many ways in which the em dash can be put to work.

To draw attention to a phrase—one that you want to stand out—use em dashes. This emphasizes the phrase, whereas bracketing it would subdue it. But don’t overdo it; according to Hart’s Rules, you should limit yourself to one pair per sentence.

To indicate an aside or afterthought, use an em dash—especially if you want to convey a more casual tone.

To indicate a pause or break in direct speech, use an em dash. For example, “I always misuse—I always used to—I frequently misused em dashes.”

To set off dialogue à la mode de some European languages, start each speech in its own paragraph with an em dash.

In the same way that over-reliance on a multi-tool can lead to tears (or skinned knuckles, broken blades or rounded nuts), using too many em dashes can lead to tears of frustration on the part of the reader, who might easily lose the main message you’re trying to convey. This article is deliberately written in a style that, like a drinking binge, will have you declaring “never again!”

The Hammer As Multitool

(That heading was a desperate effort to keep the metaphor going.)
Here’s how to get the correct symbol into your document.

The following instructions are for MS Word. I suspect that something similar would work in other word processing programs. Note that MS Publisher has its own little quirks. Programs like Notepad just don’t support any of this skulduggery.

To type a hyphen, type a hyphen. Sample: a-b
To type an en dash, type CTRL + hyphen. Sample: a–b
To type an em dash, type two hyphens with no space before it. Sample: a—b

The Long and Short of It

It’s really not possible to summarize this topic, but here’s a brave attempt.

Hyphens are generally used for connecting words (or letters or numbers).

En dashes are generally used for connecting phrases, especially those in which hyphens appear.

Em dashes are generally used to introduce (and optionally close) a laterally-connected idea, and to add a little pizzazz to what follows.

None of these devices should have a space character next to them, unless the hyphen is being used as a minus sign.

There are many places where hyphenation (and dash-ation) matter. The following examples are borrowed from Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynn Truss.

  • Correspondent has a very different meaning from co-respondent.
  • A re-formed rock band is not the same as a reformed rock band.
  • A cross section of the public conjures up a different image from a cross-section of the public.

You might still remember the quote I provided at the beginning of this piece. If you don’t, then it was undoubtedly true!

Please Help Improve Yonder Pedant’s Ramblings

  • Did I miss a typo? (I’ll feel bad when you tell me, but I’d rather you did tell me!)
  • Did I write something that makes you want to turn green and burst out of your shirt?
  • Do you have any better examples that you would share and allow me to use?

If so, please let me know by leaving a comment.

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