I generally know how to use a hyphen, but when should I use an en-dash (–) instead of an em-dash, or when should I use a hyphen (-) instead of an em-dash (—)?
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4And there also quotation dash: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/28601/appropriate-dash-to-use-when-attributing-a-quotation – huseyint Apr 27 '12 at 18:10
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9Another question arises: en-dash or en dash? – Walter Tross Oct 28 '14 at 11:09
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@WalterTross, Meaning? – Pacerier May 17 '15 at 10:22
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3@Pacerier, the meaning is: should en and dash be separated by a hyphen or a space? This graph by Google might provide the answer, but I'm not sure. – Walter Tross May 17 '15 at 15:52
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@WalterTross, Is there even an official spelling for that? I'd thought it's a matter of opinion and writing style. – Pacerier May 24 '15 at 14:08
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@Pacerier, well reasoned opinions are what I like to choose from – Walter Tross May 24 '15 at 19:42
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@WalterTross, Hmm, reason don't much exist in language, usually it's a matter of majority wins. – Pacerier May 24 '15 at 20:33
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An em-dash is typically used as a stand-in for a comma or parenthesis to separate out phrases—or even just a word—in a sentence for various reasons (e.g. a parenthetical; an ersatz-ellipsis).
School is based on the three R’s—reading, writing, and ’rithmetic.
Against all odds, Pete—the unluckiest man alive—won the lottery.
I sense something; a presence I've not felt since—
An en-dash is used to connect values in a range or that are related. A good rule is to use it when expressing a "to" relationship.
The teacher assigned pages 101–181 for tonight’s reading material.
The 2015–2016 fiscal year was the most profitable year for the new business.
New York beat Los Angeles 98–95.
A hyphen is used to join words in a compound construction, or separate syllables of a word, like during a line break, or (self-evidently) a hyphenated name.
The 40-hour workweek has become a thing of the past.
The skirt was a blue-green color.
It's pronounced hos-pi-tal-it-tee.
The minus sign is distinct from all three of the above.
4 − 2 = 2.
The figure dash (‒) is so named because it is the same width as a digit, at least in fonts with digits of equal width. This is true of most fonts, not only mono-spaced fonts.
The figure dash is used within numbers (e.g. phone number 555‒0199), especially in columns for maintaining alignment. Its meaning is the same as a hyphen, as represented by the hyphen-minus glyph; by contrast, the en dash is more appropriately used to indicate a range of values; the minus sign also has a separate glyph.
The figure dash is often unavailable; in this case, one may use a hyphen-minus instead. In Unicode, the figure dash is U+2012 (decimal 8210). HTML authors must use the numeric forms ‒ or ‒ to type it unless the file is in Unicode; there is no equivalent character entity.
If you want to use the correct dash or hyphen in Stack Exchange comments, just use the appropriate HTML entity: — for em-dash, – for en-dash, and − for the minus sign. The hyphen is, of course, directly on your keyboard.
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12One question though: I thought it was customary to use em-dash without spaces—like this—on either side. But you did separate it with spaces in your first sentence. Do you know more about this? – Jonik Aug 29 '10 at 20:46
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26You're absolutely right. I added spaces around the em dashes out of habit of putting spaces around HTML entities. Chicago (my preferred style manual) indicates that no space should surround em-dashes. I edited my answer accordingly. Optionally, you can use hair spaces around em-dashes as well. – waymost Aug 30 '10 at 17:46
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20@Jonik: different style manuals have different opinions, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#Em_dash and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash – RegDwigнt Aug 30 '10 at 17:48
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1Thanks @waymost & @RegDwight! Btw, if anyone else was one wondering what "hair spaces" are, this is useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_(punctuation)#Hair_spaces_around_dashes – Jonik Aug 30 '10 at 18:19
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14Depending on your computer, you may well be able to type en- and em-dashes directly as well: on a Mac they’re option-hyphen and option-shift-hyphen respectively, and I believe that Windows machines have something similar these days. They’re not part of the original ASCII character set, so were not as reliable as —, – in the past, but all modern browsers (and the stack exchange software) cope with the simpler parts of unicode completely fine these days. – PLL Jan 11 '11 at 06:49
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I actually wrote a blog post about this recently: http://www.lucastizma.com/a-dash-of-grammar/
I'm all about using proper punctuation, but would you say it has become acceptable to effectively use a hyphen in place of most dashes?
– Jan 26 '11 at 16:47 -
4Some more uses: en-dash in Born–Haber, Bose–Einstein. Em dash for blanked letter, double for two or more letters, triple traditionally for a whole word, though you have to be brave these days to use a dash that long (“s–d this”, “you id——”, “Lord ——— was not amused”.)
On a related note, if you care about these sorts of things, you really, really oughtn’t be using
– Nicholas Wilson May 23 '11 at 18:58&mdashor other entities. Get yourself real mnemonic shortcuts for all the fancy punctuation and characters. I use Compose-hyp-hyp and Compose-hyp-dot for em and en dash (the X11 defaults, I think). -
3@PLL: Wow – I'm feeling the kind of relief I get when a sliver finally gets removed from my finger. Thanks — that feels great! – J.R. Mar 23 '12 at 02:14
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13I’m pretty sure that British English sometimes (?) uses en-dash in places where you’ve cited em-dash. Also, why the en-dash in “Olivia Newton–John”? As far as I know this always uses a hyphen (I’m assuming that it’s a name). Note that this is different from the form in Nicholas’ comment which is indeed usually rendered with an en-dash. – Konrad Rudolph Apr 27 '12 at 18:10
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2@KonradRudolph: From Wikipedia, as RegDwigнt linked: "In the United Kingdom, the spaced en dash is the house style for certain major publishers, including the Penguin Group, the Cambridge University Press, and Routledge. In the United Kingdom, the spaced en dash is the house style for certain major publishers, including the Penguin Group, the Cambridge University Press, and Routledge. But this convention is not universal." – Nick Stauner Feb 11 '14 at 03:25
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1That's really useful. Just one (unrelated) question: shouldn't "(i.e. an appositive)" be "(e.g. an appositive)" in this case? (With a comma being optional). I could be wrong—English isn't my first language so I try to clarify when I'm not 100% sure. Also — doesn't seem to work in comments. – Vala May 20 '15 at 10:09
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1In the "3 R's" sentence, shouldn't that be a colon rather than an Em dash? – einpoklum Feb 16 '16 at 20:45
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@einpoklum: em-dashes can often be used in place of colons, but certainly a colon would work there. – Peter Shor Jun 28 '16 at 15:00
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2Many newspapers do surround em dashes with spaces. This has always made more sense to me since it improves clarity by immediately informing me that I shouldn't interpret the word following the dash as the second part of a hyphenated word. And given the differences across fonts, you can't rely solely on the size of the dash/hyphen to provide that clarity. It saves me a moment of mental processing time. – squidbe Feb 16 '19 at 11:21
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Does anyone else find the third em-dash example ("I sense something; a presence I've not felt since—") mystifying? What's going on in that sentence? If the point is to show an instance in which an em dash is used to break off a sentence in mid-thought or mid-expression, it might be clearer if the earlier part of the sentence didn't include another break (oddly punctuated with a semicolon) that might itself be indicated by an em dash (as in "I sense something—a presence I've not felt since..."). One might, for example, use this as the example: "I sense a presence I've not felt since—" – Sven Yargs Apr 22 '21 at 19:59
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+1 for the Star Wars reference. @SvenYargs: that's what you're seeing in that third example (youtube link). It is indeed an instance where an em-dash is used to break a sentence off, midway. You're right that there are likely better examples, but I approve of this one ;-) – Praveen May 10 '21 at 02:57
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Thanks. In case people don't know how to type these: Hold down the Alt key and type 0151 for an em dash or 0150 for an en dash. – Louis Liu Nov 19 '21 at 23:34
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I'd add that an en dash is sometimes used to join terms to form a tuplet of related elements, typically 2 words as a pair, such as a key–value pair or the foo–bar duality/relation. I guess this is your "when expressing a 'to' relationship", but maybe this use is worth pointing out. The order may be relevant or not; it's not always "to" in the sense of first to second. – Drew May 31 '23 at 20:49