Are you using the right one?
I recently developed a new philosophy for style tips I share with clients. And no, I’m not talking about fashion, because nobody should listen to me on that.
“Style” is writing and editing terminology for the punctuation, capitalization and spelling choices you make in your writing, whether you realize you’re making them or not. For example…
& or “and”
7 or “seven”
DASH OR HYPHEN. But I’ll get to that.
First, my philosophy, informed by the beautiful and dastardly publishing free-for-all that is the Internet.
If you know the “right” way to do things, you can make informed choices instead of accidental ones.
If you choose to screw style or create your own, that’s totally cool.
Adhering to a little style doesn’t mean you have to keep rifling through your Canadian Press Style Guide or Chicago Manual of Style (y’all have copies of those, right?) because yuck, I don’t even want to do that.
It’s just a matter of knowing a few best practices.
Allllrighty then.
The first thing you have to know is that we’re actually dealing with THREE confounding bits of punctuation here.
The hyphen, which is looks like this: near-sighted (and there’s a sneak peek on how to use it)
The en dash, which is the size of the letter “n” and look like this: –
And my personal favourite (which I admittedly may overuse), the em dash, which is this guy: —
When to use a hyphen
In proper use, a hyphen serves to connect two words that create a single idea and come before a noun. This is called a compound adjective.
The red-haired bus driver. The wide-eyed toddler.
Just to makes things complicated, this isn’t a finite rule, as there are times when you don’t want to hyphenate. For example, when the first word ends with a “ly,” as in incredibly tall tree.
Hyphens can also be used like this:
Whenever I have a birthday I slip into one of those what-does-it-all mean phases, which usually lasts about a week.
(True story, although it lasts way longer than a week. Moving on!)
When to use a dash
A hyphen should NOT be used to offset an idea within a sentence. This is ugly, and it looks amateur.
Occasionally people use two hyphens instead of a dash, which I can only assume means they don’t know how to make a dash, which we will get to, or they’re lazy. I do this sometimes in emails or on social media, and it’s totally because I’m feeling lazy.
Here are some places you could use a dash:
I’ve also got school-smarts—a master’s degree in journalism, an honours degree in English and a certificate in creative writing—and experience teaching at the university level.
That’s one thing nobody will admit about parenting—sometimes you’ll hate it.
Dashes are typically used in place of commas, colons or parenthesis, but to make a stronger statement. Think of it as super punctuation.
In the first example, I’m using two em dashes to pop extra information into my sentence. The dashes make the added information seem more important than parenthesis would. Note that if you removed this info, the sentence would still be complete.
In the second example, the em dash is being used to set up and emphasize the second piece of information, instead of a colon.
Which dash to use: en or em?
Now that you’re on board with using a dash instead of a hyphen (yes!), it’s time to take a look at the two different dashes you have to choose from.
In formal use, the longer em dash should be used in the above examples and in most cases. Technically, the shorter en dash should be used very rarely—most commonly when you’re expressing a range of numbers or dates, such as:
May–July
2011–2014
But, just to make things confusing…
The times, they are a changing
Some new and established publications replace the em dash with the en dash because they find the em dash too damn long.
My partner works at a large Canadian newspaper, and informs me that while they use an en dash in the paper and online (which I have noticed, which used to irritate me), they use the proper em dash for their monthly magazine.
In other words, if you find the em dash really is too long, just use an en dash instead. I’ve recently noticed that because I tend to use shorter sentences online, the em dash does look a little conspicuous.
En dash and em dash shortcuts
On a mac:
Option + hyphen = en dash
Option + shift + hyphen = em dash
If you’re on a PC, I’m reluctant to share shortcuts because I can’t actually test them for you (I’d just be copying from Google, and what’s that worth?), but I can tell you that Microsoft Word automatically turns a hyphen into an en dash if you use it between two words, and two hyphens into an em dash in the same instance. Give it a try.
A note on spacing
If you opt for the longer em dash, you can make it an open em dash, which has a single space on either side (a little brighter — while living…), or a closed em dash without spaces (a little brighter—while living…), which is what I tend to use. Otherwise the em dash takes up even more space. But it’s up to you: pick your preference and make it consistent.
If you decide to use an en dash instead of an em dash, I would keep the spaces around it or else things are going to get smushy.
Okay, that’s it! Is it clear as mud, as my dad likes to say?
[Tweet “Make informed style choices instead of accidental ones: Dash vs. hyphen.”]
I’d love to know if this information was useful, or if it gave you a yawn attack. I’d be happy tackle some other common style problems in future posts, but only if you’re interested!
THANK YOU for this article, Nicole. It is so incredibly useful!! As you know, I’m totally le suck at grammar (style, punctuation, all of it), but I still want to learn and at least attempt to use the right… things and stuff.
OK, I’ll sign off now before I embarrass myself any further 😉
But seriously, thanks for articles like this!
Jamie, you’re the absolute best. Thanks for being excited about my dorky advice!! Very happy to help!
Thank you so much for this Nicole, your advice is pure gold to me!
I really don’t know much about style rules when writing in english (which is a foreign language to me). I basically write in plain language, a lot like how I would talk or think in english, without giving this kind of detail much thought… but I find myself often using commas in places that (obviously) dash or hypen would make more sense.
This is really helpfull 🙂
Vesna
That’s great Vesna! As I hinted in the post, dashes can very much be overused (I may be guilty of this myself) but from time to time they can definitely help with clarity and emphasis. Thanks so much for reading!
Awesome article Nicole! I have been using Microsoft Word for so long that I have taken its auto en dash for granted. So much so that I didn’t even realize I was failing to use them when on social media or in other programs. Nice to have the rule laid out so clearly. Thanks!
Awesome, Kasia! It’s a small detail but using them properly definitely helps you look and feel a bit more together! Glad this was helpful.
Great article! I really like how you’ve presented your info, lol, your spacing is just perfect for easy reading 🙂
And thanks for including the shortcuts too!
-jen
Awesome, thank you so much for reading — and taking the time to leave a comment!
Guilty on lazy typing. Great info, thanks!
I do it too! We type SO MUCH these days. Sometimes it doesn’t matter so much. Sometimes it really does! Thanks for reading!
Fellow nerd chiming in here. The shortcut for an em dash on PCs is ALT + 0151. I know because I use it ALL THE TIME. Thanks for bringing this important topic to light. 🙂
You’re awesome, Beth. Thank you!
Thank you so much for this! I love a great dash…and a great hyphen! I never knew the shorter and longer dashes had names, though. So great to know now!
Future blog request: Will you write about where to put the darn comma (I’m a punctuation freak…and hate not being sure of this one) when using it with quotes in the middle of a sentence and then at the end?
For example: My name is “Stefani”, and I love dogs. (Does that comma go inside the quotes or where I have it?)
And: My name is Stefani, and I’m a “crazy dog lady.” (Is it the same rule at the end of a sentence, and does it go before or after the end quote?)
Thank you sooo much!!!
Stefani, thank you for making a request! That’s awesome. Adding this to my list of posts to write!
But the short answer: at least in the US and Canada, the punctuation should stay inside the quotation marks. So your first example was incorrect and the second was correct.
I hope you really are a crazy dog lady because that sounds awesome.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment!
But
OMG I loved the nerdiness of this!
English is my 3rd language and I hadn’t even realized there was a difference.
Thanks and keep them coming!
Three languages = you’re amazing. Thanks for reading, I will keep ’em coming!
I love this information so much! Thank you for clarifying these things. I’m feeling ashamed about some past dash behavior but hopeful about a better future:)
You are so welcome, Nicole! Thanks for reading!
Thanks so much for this lesson.