When to use a hyphen, an en dash or an em dash
These oft-confused line segments can be helpful for writers and editors, but they should be employed with care. Here’s how to distinguish the marks and their respective purposes.
As experienced writers and editors, many PR Daily readers harbor a dislike for the hyphen.
It’s a punctuation mark that’s supposed to help writers avoid ambiguity, but it can confuse readers. Add dashes of varying lengths, and it’s chaos.
Chaos aside, hyphens and dashes have different uses and cannot be used interchangeably. Here’s how to tell the difference and use each correctly.
Hyphens
Hyphens connect words, prefixes and suffixes, and they are generally used to avoid ambiguity.
We found ourselves in a dirty movie theater.
We found ourselves in a dirty-movie theater.
The battalion was made up of six foot soldiers.
The battalion was made up of six-foot soldiers.
Hyphens are also used to separate numbers that are not inclusive, such as telephone numbers or Social Security numbers. Hyphens are likewise used in URLs and email addresses, and to spell out a word letter by each letter.
800-888-8888
hyphen-dash.com
pandemonium is spelled p-a-n-d-e-m-o-n-i-u-m
Em dashes
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