(Remember that the same thing is true of bracketing commas, which Principle, at least, dashes come in pairs, though sometimes one of them is not Violently disrupts the flow of the sentence.) Again, note that word `pair': in
Interruption from the rest of the sentence. The dash has only one use: a pair of dashes separates a strong I prefer the first style, since it is much easier on the eye, and I recommend that Both conventions are in use, and hence you may see either of Uses no white spaces at all, but writes the dash solid next to whatever precedesĪnd follows it. Modern one is to put white spaces at both ends of a dash, while the older style There are two slightly different conventions for using a dash. Produce a proper dash and save you from worrying about this. In any case, you will be very unlucky if your word processor can't Hyphen in other contexts, you should consider using the more vivid double You are writing for publication, you will probably have to use the single More prominent than a single one and avoids any possibility of ambiguity. That I strongly prefer the American style, since the double hyphen is far more American usage, inĬontrast, uses two consecutive hyphens - like this (A). Use only a single hyphen to represent a dash - like this. If your keyboard can't produce aĭash, you will have to resort to a hyphen as a stand-in. Usually produce one in one way or another. Few keyboards have a dash, but a word processor can
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You can check out our service with a 500-word free trial today.The dash ( -), also called the em dash, is the long horizontal bar, much
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#M DASH HOW TO#
Check out this post on how to type these dashes with Windows and Mac devices. You may have noticed that neither en nor em dashes can be found on a regular QWERTY keyboard. The main difference is that US English uses em dashes-usually without spaces-in place of parentheses, while UK English prefers the shorter en dash – with a space either side – for the same purpose. Summary: En Dashes and Em Dashes in US and UK EnglishĪs we’ve seen, en dashes-the width of an n-and em dashes-the width of an m-are used in much the same way on both sides of the pond. For example, the Associated Press style book, which is often used in magazine publishing, says that there should be a space on both sides of an em dash. Usually, you don’t need to put spaces around em dashes, but you should check your style guide to be sure. For essays, dissertations, and other formal writing, use brackets and colons to separate information from the main text. Therefore, you should avoid using em dashes this way in academic writing.
When you use em dashes instead of parentheses (or brackets) like this, your writing is usually more dramatic. I named my pets-Loki, Thor, and Wanda-after my favorite Marvel characters. When you’re writing for an American audience, you can use em dashes as an alternative to parentheses: You can use one when somebody suddenly stops talking like this:Īn em dash can also be used to show that one speaker is talking over another: “Hey Jude” is over seven minutes long – 40% of it is “na na na!”Įm dashes are used in all English dialects to indicate interrupted speech. Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter! Moreover, UK English allows for a spaced en dash to be used like a colon to introduce new information: The most popular Beatles song – “Hey Jude” – was in the charts for 19 weeks. If you’re writing for UK readers, you can also use pairs of spaced en dashes instead of parentheses: In all of these uses, the en dash is used without spaces. Mark Knopfler sang about the Mason–Dixon line.Įn dashes can also be used in place of a hyphen when a prefix comes before a compound noun or adjective: The Keith Urban Tour, July 8th–December 17th 2022įeelings run high in the Marvel–DC debate. The en dash is used in all English dialects in the following four ways: We’ve written before about en dashes and em dashes, but today’s post is about how these punctuation marks are used differently in US and UK English. En Dashes and Em Dashes in US and UK EnglishĮven though the difference between the en dash and the em dash might be only a millimeter, confusing them in your writing can be a big problem.
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