The Differences Between Dashes
Dashes are one of my favourite kinds of punctuation—they’re pretty versatile, and I love peppering them into my writing!
Did you know there are two kinds of dashes? The en dash and the em dash. Traditionally, the en dash is the width of the letter n (–), while the em dash is the width of the letter m (—).
Let’s take a look. (I’ll even throw in some info about hyphens!)
The Em Dash (—)
The em dash is the longest dash. It’s used to break off dialogue or to set off a clause the way commas do. See below for an example of each.
Used to break off dialogue
Ex: “Oh, I didn’t—” Sally was cut off by the yowling of her cat.
Used as a pair (either as parentheses or commas)
Ex: I was walking to work, and—as I said, it was raining, but anyway—I saw the most insane car.
The En Dash (–)
The en dash is shorter than the em dash but longer than the hyphen. It’s typically used to connect ranges of numbers, but an en dash can connect other ranges. It can also join a prefix and a multi-word proper noun. (See the third example.)
Used for ranges of numbers
Ex: Please see pages 1–9.
Used for ranges of other sorts
Ex: The weather was exceptional June–August.
Used to join multi-word proper nouns
Ex: The Spanish Flu spread quickly post–World War I
Note: A range includes everything between the two extremities you list. That means the weather was exceptional in June, July, and August, not just in June and August.
The Hyphen (-)
A hyphen joins two words that are closely connected. These closely connected words can be either a single idea comprising two words—that’s not a closed compound (like notebook) or a known open compound (like high school)—or a joint modifier (a two-word adjective).
A single idea with two words
Ex: a work-around
A joint modifier
Ex: a community-centred initiative, a child-focused environment
But: a quickly booked service
Note: Adjectives ending in -ly are an exception to the joint modifier rule listed above. In the third hyphen example, quickly acts an adverb modifying booked, so it doesn’t qualify as a joint modifier.
Choosing whether you need an em dash, en dash or hyphen may seem tricky at first, but the more you practice, the easier it’ll become.
Okay, gotta dash!